es Sir Barnes
Newcome's man of business; and before which, Mr. Harris, as he was
called, was walking, and waiting till a carriage which he had ordered
came round from the inn yard. As Sir Barnes Newcome rode into the place
many people touched their hats to him, however little they loved him. He
was bowing and smirking to one of these, when he suddenly saw Belsize.

He started back, causing his horse to back with him on to the pavement,
and it may have been rage and fury, or accident and nervousness merely,
but at this instant Barnes Newcome, looking towards Lord Highgate, shook
his whip.

"You cowardly villain!" said the other, springing forward. "I was going
to your house."

"How dare you, sir," cries Sir Barnes, still holding up that unlucky
cane, "how dare you to--to----"

"Dare, you scoundrel!" said Belsize. "Is that the cane you strike your
wife with, you ruffian!" Belsize seized and tore him out of the saddle,
flinging him screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and
making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street; a hundred
people were round Sir Barnes in a moment.

The carriage which Belsize had ordered came round at this very juncture.
Amidst the crowd, shrinking, bustling, expostulating, threatening, who
pressed about him, he shouldered his way. Mr. Taplow, aghast, was one of
the hundred spectators of the scene.

"I am Lord Highgate," said Barnes's adversary. "If Sir Barnes Newcome
wants me, tell him I will send him word where he may hear of me."
And getting into the carriage, he told the driver to go "to the usual
place."

Imagine the hubbub in the town, the conclaves at the inns, the talks
in the counting-houses, the commotion amongst the factory people, the
paragraphs in the Newcome papers, the bustle of surgeons and lawyers,
after this event. Crowds gathered at the King's Arms, and waited round
Mr. Speers the lawyer's house, into which Sir Barnes was carried. In
vain policemen told them to move on; fresh groups gathered after the
seceders. On the next day, when Barnes Newcome, who was not much hurt,
had a fly to go home, a factory man shook his fist in at the carriage
window, and, with a curse, said, "Serve you right, you villain." It was
the man whose sweetheart this Don Juan had seduced and deserted years
before; whose wrongs were well known amongst his mates, a leader in the
chorus of hatred which growled round Barnes Newcome.

Barnes's mother and sister Ethel had reached