y that thing McCluire, and to have the noble
coat-of-mail of the Marquis de Neuville locked up in a dirty cell and
probably ruined, and to lose his position with Carstairs, who had
always treated him so well, it was terrible! It could not be! He
looked through his visor; to the right and to the left a policeman
walked on each side of him with his hand on his iron sleeve, and
McCluire marched proudly before. The dim lamps of McGovern's
night-hawk shone at the side of the procession and showed the crowd
trailing on behind. Suddenly Hefty threw up his visor "Stuff," he
cried, "are youse with me?"

He did not wait for any answer, but swung back his two iron arms and
then brought them forward with a sweep on to the back of the necks of
the two policemen. They went down and forward as if a lamp-post had
fallen on them, but were up again in a second. But before they could
rise Hefty set his teeth, and with a gurgle of joy butted his iron
helmet into McCluire's back and sent him flying forward into a
snow-bank. Then he threw himself on him and buried him under three
hundred pounds of iron and flesh and blood, and beat him with his
mailed hand over the head and choked the snow and ice down into his
throat and nostrils.

"You'll club me again, will you?" he cried. "You'll send me to the
Island?" The two policemen were pounding him with their night-sticks
as effectually as though they were rapping on a door-step; and the
crowd, seeing this, fell on them from behind, led by Stuff McGovern
with his whip, and rolled them in the snow and tried to tear off their
coat-tails, which means money out of the policeman's own pocket for
repairs, and hurts more than broken ribs, as the Police Benefit
Society pays for them.

"Now then, boys, get me into a cab," cried Hefty. They lifted him in
and obligingly blew out the lights so that the police could not see
its number, and Stuff drove Hefty proudly home. "I guess I'm even with
that cop now," said Hefty as he stood at the door of the studio
building perspiring and happy; "but if them cops ever find out who the
Black Knight was, I'll go away for six months on the Island. I guess,"
he added, thoughtfully, "I'll have to give them two prizes up."

OUTSIDE THE PRISON

It was about ten o'clock on the night before Christmas, and very cold.
Christmas Eve is a very-much-occupied evening everywhere, in a
newspaper office especially so, and all of the twenty and odd
reporters were out that