denly made up his mind what he would do. Grasping the
gentlemanly house-breaker by the waist, he suddenly hurled that
unfortunate heels over head into the kennel, tripped up the policeman,
knocked the bearded accomplice into the arms of the jeweller, the
red-haired one into the broken window, and bolted!

Instantly a wild chase began. The crowd that had assembled on the first
sound of the smash ran yelling after him, headed by the gentlemanly
house-breaker, whose fall had been partially broken by a little boy.
The accomplices were too much damaged to do more than keep up with the
tail of the crowd.

At first Kenneth ran without regard to direction, and with the simple
view of escaping, but as he neared the head of the main street he
determined to make for the house of Colonel Crusty. Being fleet of foot
he soon left behind the mass of the crowd that followed in full cry,
with the exception of a few young men who were more of a match for him.
Ahead of all these ran the gentlemanly house-breaker and the policeman,
both of whom were strong and supple.

The roar of the augmenting crowd, however, soon became so great that
people in advance of him heard it, and some of these made demonstrations
of a wish to try to stop him as he passed, but most of them wisely
concluded that it would be nearly as safe to place themselves in the way
of a runaway locomotive engine. One man proved an exception. He was a
butcher, of great size and strength, who, being accustomed to knock down
horned cattle with a hammer, naturally enough thought it not impossible
to knock down a man with his fist, so he tried it.

Standing in the doorway of his own shop when Kenneth came tearing along,
he waited until he was within four yards of him, and darted out.
Kenneth had fortunately observed the man. He stooped, without
slackening his pace, to let the blow delivered by his opponent pass over
his head, and drove his right shoulder into the butcher's broad chest.
The shock was so great as to completely check his career, while it sent
the butcher back into his shop, over his own bench, and prostrated him
on the carcase of a slaughtered ox which had been carried in just two
minutes before, as if to form a bloody and congenial bed for its owner.

Kenneth instantly started off again and doubled suddenly down a
by-street which led to the colonel's residence. Here he was smitten
with a feeling of shame at the idea of appearing before his friends in
suc