astonishment; then we both staggered, our feet went from under us, and,
locked in each other's arms, we sat down, all of a heap, in the "28 a
shilling, not warranted," compartment, and a hideous crackling, as of a
subdued and squashy landslip, went on beneath our writhing forms.

"Oh, good Lord!" exclaimed the young butterman, throwing up both arms in
his despair, "here's a go!"

"Here--hullo--what the blazes are you two blokes hup to?" cried the
policeman, catching us both by the collars of our coats and shaking us;
"this is a nice place to begin larking, I must say."

"It is not larking," I exclaimed, getting on my feet, a hideous mass of
egg-shells and indifferent egg-flip; "it's highway robbery! This man is
in possession of my property--proceeds of a burglary--I'm Kippen, the
pawnbroker, No. 319; he's got my clock in his pocket now. I--I give him
in charge, constable, I give him in charge! Why don't you catch hold of
him?"

[Illustration: "OUR FEET WENT FROM UNDER US."]

"The man's mad!" ejaculated Mr. Youson, "raving mad. Somebody catch hold
of _him_."

There was a big crowd round us--it doesn't take long to get up a mob in
Bermondsey--and the proprietor of the cheesemonger's shop, who had
emerged from his caves of double Gloucester, was wanting to make a case
of his own out of it all, and run the two of us in. The policeman was
bewildered, and Mr. Youson was beside himself with ungovernable rage.

"He has got the clock in his pocket," I repeated.

"Yes, I know I have a clock in my pocket," he spluttered, "you--you
rascal--you unmitigated----"

"It's my clock. I can swear to it," I yelled. "I've plenty of witnesses
to prove it's mine."

"You'd better both come round to the station-house," said the policeman;
"do you charge him with taking your clock, sir?" he added to me.

"I do."

"Very well."

We went off to the station-house, Mr. Youson and I, the policeman and
the cheesemonger, and a grand procession in the rear of about fifteen
hundred persons with nothing to do. The cheesemonger and I conversed
amicably _en route_, when he had become thoroughly convinced that I
was a brother tradesman, resident at the far end of the street. He
understood the case then--he grasped the situation--but he could not for
the life of him make out, he said, why we had sat down in the middle of
his eggs to argue the point. Who was answerable for all the damage, he
should like to know? I didn't know, I told him, and I