“Let him come on!  Let him come on like a man!  Take that, you ruffian, and that!”

Gammon, knowing the conflict grossly unequal, did not scruple to fight his own way.  Polperro, wildly thrashing about him with both fists, excited wrath in every direction.  There was a general scrimmage; shouts of rage mingled with wild laughter; the throng crushed this way and that.  Grappling in his own defence with a big brute who had clutched his throat, Gammon saw Polperro go down.  It was his last glimpse of the unfortunate man.  Fighting savagely he found himself borne far away by an irresistible rush, and when he had lost sight of his foe he tried vainly to return to the place where Polperro had fallen.  The police were now interfering, the crowd swayed more violently than ever, and began to scatter itself in off-streets.

From church towers of east and west chimes rang merrily for the New Year.  Softly fell the snow from a black sky, and was forthwith trodden into slush.

Though he was badly mauled and felt sick Gammon would not abandon the hope of discovering his friend.  After resting for a few minutes against the front of a shop he moved again into the crowd, now much thinner, and soon to be altogether dispersed.  The helmets of policemen drew him in a certain direction; two constables were clearing the way, and he addressed them, asking whether they had seen a bareheaded man recently damaged in a fight.

“There’s been a disturbance over yonder,” one replied, carelessly pointing to a spot where other helmets could be discerned.

Thither Gammon made his way.  He found police and public gathered thickly about some person invisible; a vigorous effort and he got near enough to see a recumbent body, quite still, on which the flakes of snow were falling.

“Let me look at him,” he requested of a constable who would have pushed him away.  “It’s a friend of mine, I believe.”

Yes, it was Lord Polperro, unconscious, and with blood about his mouth.

The police were waiting as a matter of professional routine to see whether he recovered his senses; they had, of course, classed him as “drunk and incapable.”

“I say,” Gammon whispered to one of them, “let me tell you who that is.”

The conference led to the summoning of a cab, which by police direction was driven to the nearest hospital, St. Bartholomew’s.  Here Gammon soon learnt that the case was considered serious, so serious that the patient has been put to bed and must there remain.

Utterly done up Gammon threw himself into the cab to be driven to Kennington Road.  When he reached Mrs. Bubb’s he was fast asleep, but there a voice addressed him which restored his consciousness very quickly indeed.

CHAPTER XXIII

HIS LORDSHIP RETIRES

It was the voice of Greenacre, unsteady with wrath, stripped utterly of its bland intonations.