publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to
fight now.

"Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!"

"I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing
away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he
flung it on the ground.

As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the
workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.

"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the captain
of police. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not permitted to
anybody now a days!" shouted the publican, picking up his cap.

"Come along then! Come along then!" the publican and the tall young
fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street
together.

The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and others
followed behind, talking and shouting.

At the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed
shutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin,
worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered
coats.

"He should pay folks off properly," a thin workingman, with frowning
brows and a straggly beard, was saying.

"But he's sucked our blood and now he thinks he's quit of us. He's been
misleading us all the week and now that he's brought us to this pass
he's made off."

On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased
speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving
crowd.

"Where are all the folks going?"

"Why, to the police, of course!"

"I say, is it true that we have been beaten?" "And what did you think?
Look what folks are saying."

Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the
increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.

The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his
bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention
to himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting
answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.

"He must keep order, keep the law, that's what the government is there
for. Am I not right, good Christians?" said the tall youth, with a
scarcely perceptible smile. "He thinks there's no government! How can
one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who'd rob us."

"Why talk nonsense?" rejoined voices in the crowd. "