a time
when I could stand it no longer, and I set off to find my way back to my
lodgings. On the whole, I felt that Birchespool was a place in which a
man might very well spend a happy life.

At one end of Cadogan Terrace (where I am lodging) there is a wide open
space where several streets meet. In the centre of this stands a large
lamp in the middle of a broad stone pedestal, a foot or so high, and ten
or twelve across. Well, as I strolled along I saw there was something
going on round this lamppost. A crowd of people had gathered, with a
swirl in the centre. I was, of course, absolutely determined not to get
mixed up in any row; but I could not help pushing my way through the
crowd to see what was the matter.

It wasn't a pretty sight. A woman, pinched and bedraggled, with a baby
on her arm, was being knocked about by a burly brute of a fellow whom I
judged to be her husband from the way in which he cherished her. He was
one of those red-faced, dark-eyed men who can look peculiarly malignant
when they choose. It was clear that he was half mad with drink, and that
she had been trying to lure him away from some den. I was just in time
to see him take a flying kick at her, amid cries of "Shame!" from the
crowd, and then lurch forward again, with the evident intention of
having another, the mob still expostulating vaguely.

If, Bertie, it had been old student days, I should have sailed straight
in, as you or any other fellow would have done. My flesh crept with my
loathing for the brute. But I had also to think of what I was and where
I was, and what I had come there to do. However, there are some things
which a man cannot stand, so I took a couple of steps forward, put my
hand on the fellow's shoulder, and said in as conciliatory and genial a
voice as I could muster: "Come, come, my lad! Pull yourself together."

Instead of "pulling himself together," he very nearly knocked me
asunder. I was all abroad for an instant. He had turned on me like a
flash, and had struck me on the throat just under the chin, my head
being a little back at the moment. It made me swallow once or twice, I
can tell you. Sudden as the blow was, I had countered, in the automatic
sort of way that a man who knows anything of boxing does. It was only
from the elbow, with no body behind it, but it served to stave him off
for the moment, while I was making inquiries about my windpipe. Then
in he came with a rush; and the crowd swarming round with s