s friendliest when it saw a woman actually under arrest, the crowd
broke into applause--dividing its cheers impartially between prisoner
and police. For this was what it had come out to see: this was why it
had paid tram-fares from distant slums, sacrificing its evening at the
"pub" and its pot of beer. These men of hard toiling lives and dull
imagination were there to see women of a class and education superior to
their own break the law and get "copped" for it, just like one of
themselves.

"Quite right too! teach them to be'ave as they ought to," was the
comment passed here and there--though as a matter of fact it had already
been abundantly proved that it taught them nothing of the kind. But
that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street;
he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who,
smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is
down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to
ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of
prisoner and escort passed on its way.

"Three cheers for the Women's Charter!" cried a voice somewhere in the
crowd; and there went up in response a genial roar, half of derision,
half of sympathy.

"Give 'em hell!" cried a wild little man, his face contorted with rage
and the lust which finds satisfaction in a blow. He went fiercely on,
butting his shoulder against every woman he met. Nobody arrested him;
nobody cried "shame." "Give 'em hell!" he cried.

"They're getting it!" laughed a pale youth with an underhung jaw.

Wherever the eye turned hell could be seen having its will, and deriving
a curious satisfaction from its momentary power to do foul things under
the public eye.

"Oh, save me! save me! save me!" whimpered a woman's voice. Down in the
gulf below, buried under the shoulders of men, a small elderly figure
was clinging to the King's arm.

"Oh, can't you do anything for me?" wailed the poor little Chartist,
with nerve utterly gone.

"Why don't you go home?" inquired the King kindly.

"I want to go home!" she said. "Take me!"

"The first thing, then, is to get out of this crowd. Keep hold of my
arm."

"No!" A perverse tag of conscience held her back. "I don't want to! I've
got a petition; it has to go to the King. Oh, if he only knew!"

"Give it to me! I will see that he gets it."

"You? You'd only throw it away when my back was turned."

"No; I