ng and stinging in his head.

That was the end of the engagement, for there was a rush of police
through the crowd, people were separated, and by the time Frank Pratt
had fought his way out of a state of semi-suffocation, he was standing
with his friend fifty yards away, and the constables were hurrying two
men off to the station.

"Let's get back," said Trevor. "I can't let that fellow bear all the
brunt of the affair."

Pratt felt disposed to dissuade, but he gave way, and they got to the
outskirts with no little difficulty, just in time to see that the
barouche horses had been put to, and that the carriage was being driven
off the ground with the West-countryman upon the box.

"He's out of the pickle, then," said Pratt.

"There, come away, man; the police have, for once in a way, caught the
right offender; don't let's get mixed up with it any more."

"Very well," said Dick, calmly. "I feel better now; but I should have
liked to soundly thrash that scoundrel."

"It's done for you," said Pratt. "Now let's go and get in your bets."

"I'm afraid, Franky," said Trevor, "that you are not only a mercenary
man, but a great--I mean little coward."

"Quite right--you're quite right," said Pratt. "I am mercenary because
the money's useful, and enables a man to pay his laundress; and as to
being a coward, I am--a dreadful coward. I wouldn't mind if it were
only skin, that will grow again; but fancy being ragged about and
muddied in tussle with that fellow! Why, my dear Dick, I should have
been six or seven pounds out of pocket in no time."

"I wonder who those girls were in the barouche," said Trevor, after a
pause.

"Daresay you do," was the reply; "so do I. Sweet girls--very; but you
may make yourself quite easy; you will never see either of them again."

"Don't know," said Trevor, slowly. "This is a very little place, this
world, and I have often run against people I knew in the most
out-of-the-way places."

"Yes, you may do so abroad," said Pratt; "but here, in England, you
never do anything of the kind, except in novels. I saw a girl once at
the chrysanthemum show in the Temple, and hoped I should ran against her
again some day, but I never did. She wasn't so nice, though, as these."

Trevor smiled, and then, encountering one or two gentlemen with whom he
had made bets, a little pecuniary business followed, after which the
friends strolled along the course.

"By the way," said Trevor, "I was just