A voice behind Leonard said in his ear, "You come out of this, young fellow!" and looking round the lad saw the shabby, sickly man who had been following him.
The crowd hemmed them all four in the midst of it.
"Hallo! The bobbies!" was whispered.
The crowd opened a way through which one of the disputants rushed, all eyes fixed upon him.
An arm came over Leonard's shoulder, and a dirty hand clutched his turquoise breast-pin; another arm came over the other shoulder and another hand clutched the first one. At the same moment two policemen's helmets peered over the crowd, and a stern voice said, "What's up? What's your game?"
Then in some mysterious way the first hand and arm vanished, and only the second remained, and Leonard found himself thus hugged by a stranger, and confronted by two stalwart policemen.
When an English man or boy finds himself in the hands (or, as in this case, in the arms) of a stranger, his first impulse is to show fight. Naturally Leonard began to plunge and to double his fists. But he could not keep this up, for the man whose arm was round him quickly retired and stood a few paces off, looking wan and haggard, and very unlike a thief or ruffian.
The crowd had melted away. The two policemen stood with faces fixed in something between a grin and a scowl.
"What are you all up to?" said Leonard, in astonishment at the suddenness of the whole affair.
"Just this, young man," replied one of the policemen, "that if you want to walk about in this part of London you had better not wear such an enticing pin in your scarf."