“Soak it to him, Patsy,” howled the ring of spectators.
They took up the playful practice of shoving one another against Ned, who, like a baited bear, was assailed from all sides.
“G’wan!” piped Patsy, again, trampling on Ned’s toes.
Somebody smartly knocked Ned’s cap off. Somebody reached over and wrenched at his torch, and while he was striving to keep it his cape was neatly turned over his head just as Patsy struck him a stinging blow on the mouth.
Blinded in his cape, poor Ned floundered here and there, jostled, kicked, and beaten, until he thought that his last hour had come. He lost his cap, and he lost his torch, and finally the fastenings of his cape gave way and he lost it, too. This proved lucky, for with a plunge he broke the ring hemming him in, and in the mix-up escaped.
He was discovered.
“Here he is!”
“Stop him!”
“Head him off!”