The other assailant was using his boot-heel on the prostrate man at that moment, when the Hibernian gave him a couple of blows in lightning-like succession.  They landed upon the face of the coward with a sensation about the same as if a well-shod mule had planted his two hind feet there.

He, too, collapsed on the instant, and for a considerable time lost all interest in worldly affairs.

It is hard work to kill a drunken man; and, despite the terrible beating the victim had suffered, he was scarcely relieved of his foes when he staggered to his feet.

“I’m obleeged to ye, young man, for assisting me, as ye did”—­

“Dry up!” broke in the impatient Hibernian.

“Talk of being obleeged to me, ’cause I interfared.  What did ye let them git ye down fur?  That’s what I want to know.  Git out wid yees!”

And the disgusted champion turned the other fellow about and expressed his opinion of him by delivering a kick, which landed him several feet away.

“That was kind in yees,” said the recipient, looking back with the droll humor of the Irish people.  “They did their hammering in front, while I resave yees in the rear, and I fale as though they was about equal.”

“What’s this? what’s this?” demanded one of the policemen in a brisk, business-like tone, swinging his locust, and looking sharply about him, as if in quest of some desperado upon whom to vent his wrath.

“It looks as if there was some trouble here.”

“It’s all done with now,” replied the man that had finished it, and then, recognizing the officer, he extended his hand.

“How are ye, Billy?”

“Hello, Pat, is that you?”

“So it is, me, Patsey McConough, that happened down this way on the lookout for a wee boy, when I saw two men beating one, and I jist restored the aquilibrium, as ye may say.  But what have ye there?” asked Patsey, peering through the gloom at the figure of a boy in the grip of the other policeman.

“A chap that we jerked for picking pockets; we’ve been shadowing him for a long time.”

The Irishman seemed to suspect the identity of the boy, and, going forward, he took him by the hand, and asked him how it all came about.

Tom told the story as it is known to the reader, when Patsey turned to the policeman.

“There’s some mistake here, Billy; that boy never took that watch—­I’ll bet my life on that.  I know him, and the story he tells is the true one, and no mistake.”

It didn’t take the policeman long to agree with Patsey, and a satisfactory arrangement was made, by which the faithful guardian kept the gold timepiece, and the boy was allowed to go free.

“I didn’t feel aisy,” said Patsey, as he walked off in company with his young friend, “when I left ye in that place, and I hadn’t been gone long whin I made up me mind to go back and fix it, whither the boss was mad or no.  Whin I arrived the throuble was over, and ye had started out.  I had to guess which way ye wint, but I seemed to hit it, and I was able to do ye a little hilp.”