upon a new
block of warehouses, in the lower windows of which some bills announced
a night-school for boys and men. Here, to judge from the commotion round
the doors, a lively scene was going on. Outside, a gang of young roughs
were hammering at the doors, and shrieking witticisms through the
keyhole. Inside, as soon as Murray Edwardes and Elsmere, by dint of good
humour and strong shoulders, had succeeded in shoving their way through
and shutting the door behind them, they found a still more animated
performance in progress. The schoolroom was in almost total darkness;
the pupils, some twenty in number, were racing about, like so many
shadowy demons, pelting each other and their teachers with the 'dips'
which, as the buildings were new, and not yet fitted for gas, had been
provided to light them through their three R's. In the middle stood the
two philanthropists they were in search of, freely bedaubed with tallow,
one employed in boxing a boy's ears, the other in saving a huge
inkbottle whereon some enterprising spirit had just laid hands by way of
varying the rebel ammunition. Murray Edwardes, who was in his element,
went to the rescue at once, helped by Robert. The boy-minister, as he
looked, had been, in fact, 'bow' of the Cambridge eight, and possessed
muscles which men twice his size might have envied. In three minutes he
had put a couple of ringleaders into the street by the scruff of the
neck, relit a lamp which had been turned out, and got the rest of the
rioters in hand. Elsmere backed him ably, and in a very short time they
had cleared the premises.

Then the four looked at each other, and Edwardes went off into a shout
of laughter.

'My dear Wardlaw, my condolences to your coat! But I don't believe if I
were a rough myself I could resist "dips." Let me introduce a
friend--Mr. Elsmere--and if you will have him, a recruit for your work.
It seems to me another pair of arms will hardly come amiss to you!'

The short red-haired man addressed shook hands with Elsmere,
scrutinising him from under bushy eyebrows. He was panting and
beplastered with tallow, but the inner man was evidently quite
unruffled, and Elsmere liked the shrewd Scotch face and gray eyes.

'It isn't only a pair of arms we want,' he remarked drily, 'but a bit of
science behind them. Mr. Elsmere, I observed, can use his.'

Then he turned to a tall affected-looking youth with a large nose and
long fair hair, who stood gasping with his hands u