ldings had been wrecked and a considerable deal
of glass broken. Lavatories, as I gathered."

"Laboratories," I suggested.

"Very like," the Sergeant agreed; "if you put it so. It struck me as
sounding like the sort of place where you wash your hands. . . .
We was pretty busy just then, or up to that moment; but from
information that reached me, they was trying to wreck some part of
the science buildings."

"One more question," said I--for by this time we had reached the edge
of the crowd. "Do you happen to know if Professor Foe was in the
building at the time?"

"He was not, sir. He had locked up for the day and gone home to his
private house. They fetched him by 'phone. . . . I know, sir, having
received instructions to pass him in: which I did, under escort.
You needn't be anxious about him, if he's a friend of yours."

But I was.

The crowd, as the Sergeant had promised, was curious rather than
vicious; much the sort of crowd that the King's coach will fetch out,
or a big fire; and from this I augured hopefully (correctly, too, as
it proved) that the actual rioters had been little more than a
handful, excited by Saturday's beer and park-oratory. . . .
The average Londoner takes very little truck in municipal politics,
as I'd been deploring for a fortnight on public platforms. It costs
you all your time to get one in ten of him to attend a public
meeting: he's cynical and sits with his back to the ring where a few
earnest men and women, and a number of cranks, are putting it up
against the Vested Interests and the Press.

As we came up, some few recognised Farrell, and raised a cheer. . . .
I dare say that helped: but anyhow the Sergeant worked us through
with great skill, here and there addressing a man good-naturedly and
advising him to go home and take his wages to the missus, because the
fun was over and soon there might be pickpockets about. In thirty
seconds or so we had reached the gate and were admitted.

The porter's lodge had escaped lightly. A trampled flower-bed,
flowerless at this season, and a few broken window-panes, were all
the evidence that the rioters had passed. A little farther on where
the broad carriage-way, that ran straight to the College portico,
threw out branches right and left to the Natural Science Buildings, a
number of ornamental shrubs had been mutilated, a few of the smaller
uprooted. Foe's laboratory lay to the left, and we were about to
take this bend when a ta