'A hundred pins for one ha'penny,' bawled a man from the gutter, with the importance of a Cagliostro.
'Evening Star! Telegrauwff!' roared an ear-splitting urchin in my very face. I gave him a shove off the pavement.
'Ah! don't do that,' said Falconer. 'It only widens the crack between him and his fellows—not much, but a little.'
'You are right,' I said. 'I won't do it again.'
The same moment we heard a tumult in a neighbouring street. A crowd was execrating a policeman, who had taken a woman into custody, and was treating her with unnecessary rudeness. Falconer looked on for a few moments.
'Come, policeman!' he said at length, in a tone of expostulation. 'You're rather rough, are you not? She's a woman, you know.'
'Hold your blasted humbug,' answered the man, an exceptional specimen of the force at that time at all events, and shook the tattered wretch, as if he would shake her out of her rags.
Falconer gently parted the crowd, and stood beside the two.
'I will help you,' he said, 'to take her to the station, if you like, but you must not treat her that way.'
'I don't want your help,' said the policeman; 'I know you, and all the damned lot of you.'