re called in that the combatants were separated.
Then there occurred a violent scene of explanation, allegation,
recrimination, and retort, during which the guardians of the peace
attempted to throw oil on the troubled waters, for it is always their
aim, we believe, to quiet down drunken uproars when possible rather than
to take up the rioters.

As the burglar, with an injured, innocent look, denied the charge made
against him, and turned all his pockets inside out in proof of his
veracity, Gunter was fain to content himself with the supposition that
he had lost his money in some incomprehensible manner.

In a very sulky mood he flung out of the public-house and sauntered
away. He knew not where to go, for he had no friends in Yarmouth--at
least none who would have welcomed him--and he had not wherewith to pay
for a bed, even in the poorest lodging.

As he walked along, conscience began to smite him, but he was in no mood
to listen to conscience. He silenced it, and at the same time called
himself, with an oath, a big fool. There is no question that he was
right, yet he would have denied the fact and fought any one else who
should have ventured so to address him.

The evening was beginning to grow dark as he turned down one of the
narrow and lonely rows.

Now, it so happened that this was one of the rows through which Ruth
Dotropy had to pass on her way home.

Ruth was not naturally timid, but when she suddenly beheld a
half-drunken man coming towards her, and observed that no one else was
near, something like a flutter of anxiety agitated her breast. At the
same moment something like a sledge-hammer blow smote the concave side
of John Gunter's bosom.

"She's got more than she needs," he growled between his teeth, "an' I've
got nothin'!"

As his conscience had been silenced this was a sufficient argument for
John.

"I'll thank you for a shillin', Miss," he said, confronting the now
frightened girl after a hasty glance round.

"Oh! yes, yes--willingly," gasped poor Ruth, fumbling in her pocket for
her purse. The purse, however, chanced to have been left at home. "Oh,
_how_ provoking! I have not my purse with me, but if these few pence
will--"

"Never mind the pence, Miss," said Gunter,--accepting the pence;
however, as he spoke--"that nice little watch will do jist as well."

He snatched the watch which hung at Ruth's waist-belt, snapped the
slender guard that held it, and made off.

When suffici