For an instant silence fell upon the “great unwashed” below.  Out of it swelled a muttering as the leader made a low, mocking obeisance to the girl, following it with a word that brought a jubilant yelp from his adherents.  Stooping, he ladled up in his cupped hand a quantity of gutter filth.  Where the flowers had but a moment before fluttered in the folds, he splotched it, smearing star, bar, and blue with its blackness.  At the sight, the girl burst into helpless tears, and so stood weeping, openly, bitterly, and unashamed.

No brain is so well ordered, no emotion so thoroughly controlled, but that under sudden pressure—­click!—­the mechanism slips a cog and runs amuck.  Just that thing happened inside the Unspeakable Perk’s smooth-running, scientific brain upon incitement of his flag’s desecration and his lady’s grief.  To her it seemed that he shot past her horizontally like a human dart.  The next second he was over the railing, had swung from a branch of the neighboring tree to the trunk, and leaped to the ground, all in one movement of superhuman agility.  To the mob his exploit was apparently without immediate significance.  Perhaps they didn’t notice the descent; or perhaps those few who saw were so astonished at the apparition of a chunky tree-man with protuberant eyes scrambling down upon them in the manner of an ape, that they failed to appreciate what it might portend of trouble.

The hermit landed solidly on his feet a few yards from Urgante, the flag bearer.  With a berserker yell, he rushed.  Taken by surprise, the assailed one still had time to lift the heavy staff.  As quickly, the American lowered his head and dove.  It may not have been magnificent; it certainly was not war by the rules; but it was eminently effective.  To say that the leader went down would be absurdly inadequate.  He simply crumpled.  Over and over he rolled on the cobbles, while the smirched flag flew clear of his grasp, and fell on the farther sidewalk.

“Wow!” yelled Cluff, leaping into the air.  “Football!  That cost him a couple of ribs.  Hey, Rube!”

And he rushed for the stairs, followed by Carroll, Sherwen, and, only one jump behind, Mr. Thatcher Brewster, cursing in a manner that did credit to his patriotism, but would have added no luster to his record as an elder of the Pioneer Presbyterian Church, of Utica, New York.

Meantime, the Unspeakable Perk, having rolled free of the fallen enemy, staggered to his feet and caught up the flag.  Stunned surprise on the part of the crowd gave him an instant’s time.  He edged along the curb, hoping to gain the legation door by a rush.  But the foe threw out a wing, cutting him off.  Several eager followers had lifted Urgante, whose groans and curses suggested a sound basis for Cluff’s diagnosis.  Himself quite hors de combat, he spat at the Unspeakable Perk, and cried upon his henchmen to kill the “Yanki.”  It seemed not improbable to the latter that they would do it.  Perkins set his back to the wall, twirled the flag folds tight around the pole, reversed and clubbed the staff, and prepared to make any attempt at killing as uncomfortable and unprofitable as possible.  The rabble, by no means favorably impressed by these businesslike proceedings, stood back, growling.