Ackroyd had changed a good deal during the last few months.  The coarser elements of his face had acquired a disagreeable prominence, and when he laughed, as he did constantly, the sound lacked the old genuineness.  To-night he was evidently trying hard to believe that he enjoyed the music-hall entertainment; in former days he would have dismissed anything of the kind with a few contemptuous words.  When the people about him roared at imbecilities unspeakable, he threw back his head and roared with them; when they stamped, he raised as much dust as any one.  Totty had no need to affect amusement; her tendency to laughter was such that very little sufficed to keep her in the carelessly merry frame of mind which agreed with her, and on the whole it was not disagreeable to be sitting by Luke Ackroyd; she glanced at him surreptitiously at times.

He drank two or three glasses of beer, then felt a need of stronger beverage.  Totty remonstrated with him:  he laughed, and drank on out of boastfulness.  At length Totty would countenance it no longer; after a useless final warning, she left her place and pressed through the crowd to the door.  Ackroyd sprang up and followed her.  His face was flushed, and grew more so in the sudden night air.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said, putting his arm through the girl’s.  ’You’re not going to leave me in that way, Totty?  Well, let’s walk about then.’

‘Look here, Mr. Ackroyd,’ began Totty, ’I’m surprised at you!  It ain’t like a man of your kind to go muddling his head night after night, in this way.’

‘I know that as well as you do, Totty.  See!’ He made her stop, and added in a lower voice, ’Say you’ll marry me, and I’ll stop it from to-night.’

’I’ve told you already I shan’t do nothing of the kind.  So don’t be silly!  You can be sensible enough if you like, and then I can get along well enough with you.’

’Very well, then I’ll drink for another week, and then be off to Canada.’

‘You’d better go at once, I should think.’

She had moved a little apart from him.  Just then a half-drunken fellow came along the pavement, and in a freak caught Totty about the waist.  Ackroyd was in the very mood for an incident of this kind.  In an instant he had planted so direct a blow that the fellow staggered back into the gutter, Totty with difficulty preventing herself from being dragged with him.  The thoroughfare was crowded, street urchins ran together with yells of anticipatory delight, and maturer loafers formed the wonted ring even before the man assaulted had recovered himself.  Then came the play of fists; Ackroyd from the first had far the best of it, but the other managed to hold his ground.

And the result of it was that in something less than a quarter of an hour from his leaving the music-hall, Ackroyd found himself on the way to the police-station, his adversary following in the care of a second constable, all the way loudly accusing him of being the assailant.