black eye, and a cut head, and a torn coat, and a nasty bruise on one of
his legs. Mrs. Bull had to patch up his coat and give him some arnica
and vaseline.

Poor Mr. Atkins! He is a most respectable man, and an excellent
watchman, as was his father before him. It is a tradition of the Atkins
family that they are as brave as lions, and do not know what fear is; but
unfortunately they are not always very clever, and Thomas is a little
slow at learning, and does not pick up new tricks readily. His father
had a tremendous hammer-and-tongs battle with the Dubois' watchman once,
right in the middle of the public street--thirty-six rounds or so they
had of it--and licked him, as John Bull says, in true British style; and
that is always Thomas's way, and the only thing that he understands
properly; none of your underhand dodges like hiding behind places and
throwing brickbats when one isn't looking. So that the Hooligan ways of
fighting were quite too much for him at first. And although Mr. Bull
spent a lot of money in buying him a new watchman's rattle and a very
expensive second-hand truncheon, nearly as good as the best kind, still
it was all no good, and Thomas couldn't turn the invaders out.

All this time you must not suppose that Mr. Bull's neighbours had nothing
to say about the matter. On the contrary, they were very much interested
and, I am sorry to say, pleased. Dubois the Frenchman, and Muller, the
man who keeps the World's Cheap Emporium, and Alexis Ivanovitch, the big
cornfactor in the next street who is always maltreating his workmen, were
never tired of saying nasty things about Mr. Bull and crowing over the
mishaps of Mr. Atkins. Everybody knows what a terrible quarrel there was
some years ago between Muller and Dubois, and how Muller went into the
toyshop and thrashed the Frenchman then and there, so that poor Dubois
had to go to bed for a week, and for a long time afterwards used to go
about vowing vengeance. But this didn't in the least prevent the two
from fraternizing on the common ground of enmity to John Bull. They
would meet--by accident, of course--just under his windows, and then
Muller would say, very loud, to Dubois, "Is it not ridiculous, my friend,
that this once apparently so mighty Herr Bull and his watchman should
again by the Hooliganish crowd have been defeated?" Or perhaps, "This is
what comes of your big businesses and your straggling premises with no
one to protect them. Ho