on
his lips.

"Say," he said, "you all saw me do this man fair and square. He isn't
dead. He's only put out. He'll be all right in five minutes. You know
it was coming to him. Now, I've got a lady with me, and I don't want
her dragged into the police station. The cops will be here in a
minute. I'd like to show this thing up in court, but we don't want to
trouble the lady, do we? If I beat it, how many of you will witness to
the cops just what happened?"

"I!" and "I!" and "I!" from the crowd and "Me! God bless ye!" from the
elder warrior, who stood wiping the blood from his ear. Bertram gave
them no chance for reconsideration. "All right!" he said, "here I go!"
He pushed his way out as he pushed it in, swept Eleanor along with
him. The spectators lifted a cheer; but only a mob of small boys
followed.

"Beat it, kids, or the bulls will pipe me!" called Bertram over his
shoulder. At this magic formula, the boys fell out. A half a block
away, Eleanor dared look back. A policeman had just arrived; he was
clubbing his way stupidly through the crowd. Bertram looked back
too.

"All right," he announced, "now don't appear to hurry." At Kearney
Street, he swung her aboard an electric car.

"Victory!" she cried as the conductor rang his two bells and the car
gathered headway. "It was perfect!"

He stared down at her.

"Well, I just had to put it through once I got started, but say--I
thought you'd sure be sore on me." His voice took on an apologetic
tone. "It seems to me when I see a scrap, I constitutionally can't
keep out of it."

"No more should you--such fights as that."

"Then you make distinctions?" he asked.

"If you mean that I distinguish between fighting just for the lust of
it and fighting to protect the helpless, I may say that I do. You did
well."

"Thank you!" he said, half-earnestly. "I'd have thought you wouldn't
like to see me muss things up, that way." He was letting his voice
slip away from him, both in volume and in manner, and the car was
crowded. A panic necessity for concealment took possession of her.

"Surely we've evaded the police--let's get out and have our walk
through the Quarter."

"I'm with you." Kearney Street, that thoroughfare which gathered into
its two miles every element in American life, here struck its hill
rise. Sheer above them hung Telegraph Hill, attained by latticed
sidewalks, half stairs. The Latin quarter thronged and played all
about them in the dusk and the fres