o'clock of a black
winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was
literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the
folks asleep--street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession
and all as empty as a church--till at last I got into that state of mind
when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a
policeman. All at once I saw two figures: one a little man who was
stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe
eight or ten, who was running as hard as she was able down a cross
street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the
corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man
trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the
ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't
like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view-holloa,
took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where
there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was
perfectly cool, and made no resistance, but gave me one look so ugly
that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had
turned out were the girl's own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for
whom she had been sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not
much the worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there
you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious
circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So
had the child's family, which was only natural. But the doctor's case
was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no
particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as
emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every
time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white
with the desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he
knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question, we did the
next best. We told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of
this as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other.
If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose
them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in red-hot, we were
keeping the women off him as best we could, for they were as wild as
harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and the