nce.

"Here's twopence to go away. Take the twopence and go away. Damn
you--take the twopence."

The man retreated in a scare.

"Won't you take the twopence? I should advise you to."

Anybody but a born fool or a hero would have taken the twopence. I think
the scrubby man had the makings of a hero. He looked up at the blazing
giant.

"You be damned!" said he, retreating a pace.

Then, suddenly, with the swiftness of a panther, Jaffery sprang on him,
grasped him in the back by a clump of clothes--it seemed, with one hand,
so quickly was it done--and hurled him yards away over the railings. I
can still see the flight of the poor devil's body in mid air until it
fell into a holly-bush. With another spring he turned on the paralysed
Gwenny, caught her up like a doll and charged with her now screaming
violently against the shut solid oak front door. A flash of instinct
suggested a latchkey. Holding the girl anyhow, he fumbled in his pocket.
It was an August London evening. The Square was deserted; but at
Gwenny's shrieks, neighbouring windows were thrown up and eager heads
appeared. It was very funny. There was Jaffery holding a squalling girl
in one arm and with the other exploring available pockets for his
latchkey. I had one of the inspirations of my life. I rushed into my
bedroom, caught up the ewer from my washstand, went out onto the extreme
edge of the balcony and cast the gallon or so of water over the heads of
the struggling pair. The effect was amazing. Jaffery dropped the girl.
The girl, once on her feet, fled like a cat. Jaffery looked up
idiotically. I flourished the empty jug. I think I threatened to brain
him with it if he stirred. Then people began to pour out of the houses
and a policeman sprang up from nowhere. I went down and joined the
excited throng. There was a dreadful to-do. It cost Jaffery five hundred
pounds to mitigate the righteous wrath of the young man in the
holly-bush, and save himself from a dungeon-cell. The scrubby young man,
who, it appeared, had been brought up in the fishmongering trade, used
the five hundred pounds to set up for himself in Ealing, where very
shortly afterwards Gwenny joined him, and that, save an enduring
ashamedness on the part of Jaffery, was the end of the matter.

So, if Jaffery did lose his head over Doria, there might be the devil to
pay. We sighed and reconciled ourselves to his exile in Crim Tartary.
After all, it was his business in life to visit the da