“We’re Jim and Dick, and Ned’s asleep yonder on the bench; and we’re come to drink a glass with yer, Honorable Abel Newt!” said Dick, in a sneering tone.  “It’s we what did your business for ye.  What yer going to do for us?”

There was a menacing air in his eye as he glanced at Abel, who felt himself quiver with impotent, blind rage.

“I dun—­dun—­no ye!” he said, with maudlin dignity.

The men pressed nearer.

“Time to go home!  Time to go home!” quavered the liquor-seller; and Ned opened his eyes, and slowly raised his huge frame from the bench.

“What’s the row?” asked he of his comrades.

“The Honorable Abel Newt’s the row,” said Jim, pointing at him.

There was something peculiarly irritating to Abel in the pointing finger.  Holding by the counter, he raised his hand and struck at it.

Ned rolled his body off the bench in a moment.

“For God’s sake!” gasped the little liquor-seller.

Jim and Dick stood hesitatingly, glaring at Abel.  Jim struck his teeth together.  Ned joined them, and they surrounded Abel.

“What in ——­ do you mean by striking me, you drunken pig?” growled Jim, but not yet striking.  Conscious of his strength, he had the instinctive forbearance of superiority, but it was fast mastered by the maddening liquor.

“Time to go home!  Time to go home!” cried the thin piping voice of the liquor-seller.

“What the ——­ do you mean by insulting my friend?” half hiccuped Dick, shaking his head threateningly, and stiffening his arm and fist at his side as he edged toward Abel.

The hard black eyes of Abel Newt shot sullen fire; His rage half sobered him.  He threw his head with the old defiant air, tossing the hair back.  The old beauty flashed for an instant through the ruin that had been wrought in his face, and, kindling into a wild, glittering look of wrath, his eye swept them all as he struck heavily forward.

“Time to go home!  Time to go home!” came the cry again, unheeded, unheard.

There was a sudden, fierce, brutal struggle.  The men’s faces were human no longer, but livid with bestial passion.  The liquor-seller rushed into the street, and shouted aloud for help.  The cry rang along the dark, still houses, and startled the drowsy, reluctant watchmen on their rounds.  They sprang their rattles.

“Murder! murder!” was the cry, which did not disturb the neighbors, who were heavy sleepers, and accustomed to noise and fighting.

“Murder! murder!” It rang nearer and nearer as the watchmen hastened toward the corner.  They found the little man standing at his door, bareheaded, and shouting,

“My God! my God! they’ve killed a man—­they’ve killed a man!”

“Stop your noise, and let us in.  What is it?”

The little man pointed back into his dim shop.  The watchmen saw only the great yellow round tanks of the liquor pure as imported, and pushed in behind the blind.  There was no one there; a bench was overturned, and there were glasses upon the counter.  No one there?  One of the watchmen struck something with his foot, and, stooping, touched a human body.  He started up.