r
colours, d'ye hear! Or will you mount the table and pitch up a godly
psalm for our sinful ears? A blister on the brat's tongue; why don't
he answer?"

I stood aghast at this scurrilous address, the like of which I had
never yet heard. The others followed it up with shouts of applause,
and one of those at my end of the table rose and came towards me,
making as if he would catch me by the shoulder to drag me forward.

But this I was not inclined to suffer.

"My name need not concern you," I said, replying to their chairman.
"As for my business here, I have come to inquire after a kinsman of
mine who uses this house. Stand back, sir, I am not to be mauled by
you!"

I spoke these last words sharply to the fellow who had tried to
lay hold of me. Though some years my senior he was but a lean,
spindle-shanked creature, whom I felt better able to give a buffet to
than to take one from him.

The big man let loose a round dozen of oaths.

"Here's a fine cockerel come into our own house of call to beard us!"
he exclaimed between his profanities. "I should like to know who uses
the 'Three-decker,' when the crew of the _Fair Maid_ are here, without
our licence? What is the matter with you, Trickster Tim? Are you
afraid to handle the yokel?"

Thus egged on, the man, who had given way under my angry looks, made
at me again. But my blood was now up, and I dealt him a blow on the
jaw which sent him down fairly to the floor. He got up, spluttering
blood, his clothes all smeared with the sawdust and the stains of
liquor, and the whole party leaped to their feet at the same time, as
if they would set upon me.

I doubt but I should have fared roughly at their hands if I had not
been delivered by a most unexpected diversion.

"Stand clear, you cowards, and leave Tim Watts to fight his own
corner, if he can!"

I turned round to the window at these words and beheld to my joy my
cousin Rupert, who had been one of the two sitting there apart, and
who had now risen, pale and very angry, with his hand on the basket of
a cutlass which he wore at his belt.

Though I should have thought it kinder if he had come to my assistance
earlier, instead of leaving me to show what I was made of first, I
hailed his interference with much relief, and stepped quickly to his
side.

But the fellows he had rebuked looked sourly in our direction and
began to grumble to each other.

"No orders here!" came from one man. "No lieutenants over us asho