“Then you must come on, and enter the charge,” said the constable. “Now, then rouse up here,” he continued, giving Mr Screwby a shake which made his bull head tap the pavement in a most unpleasant manner, till in a confused fashion he rose to his knees, and then stood up, staring hard at the proximate area railings, as if he were in doubt as to where he was, and evidently took the iron bars for those of a very different place. A moment later, though, he saw more clearly his position, and, thrusting the constable back, he darted off, and would have escaped, but for the appearance of another officer from round the corner—the shouts of his fellow galvanising him into activity.
Then there was a rush, a struggle, and the rending off of buttons, the loud bang of a heavy hat falling upon the pavement, and but for the coming up of Harry and the other constable, Mr Screwby would once more have been on the way to his den. The reinforcements, though, prevailed, and the next instant the ruffian was prone upon his back, and swearing powerfully.
This time the ignominious bracelets of the ill-doer were produced, and a sharp “click, click” told that they were ornamenting the wrists for which they were destined.
“I’d put a pair round his legs if I had my will,” growled the first constable. “What d’yer mean by falling in that ere way?”
The man took a great cotton handkerchief from his hat, and with it mopped his head hard, for he was tightly buttoned up in his coarse, heavy greatcoat.
“Yer might ha’ known you’d ha’ been ketched without coming these games,” he growled again, taking it as a deep offence against his own dignity that the culprit had tried to escape after being “took.”
But Mr Screwby did not condescend to reply with words. His responses were all looks, and those of a class that the second constable, who had found a dent in his hat, stigmatised as “gallows;” but whether deserving of that appellation or no, they were sufficiently evil, heightened as they were by a stained countenance and eyes swollen sufficiently to startle any one who met their gaze.
Mr John Screwby was caught and handcuffed, but he was not caged; but lay upon the pavement sullen and heavy, refusing to hearken to the voice of the charmer when requested to rise; even a playful tap or two from a staff, and a sharp twist of the handcuffs had no effect; the result being that one constable had to seek the station for more help, and Mr Screwby rode off in triumph, his chariot being a stretcher, and the paean of praise the mutterings and growlings of the perspiring police.
It was too late for there to be much of a popular gathering; such as there was, though, was decidedly of a sympathetic cast. Fortunately the station was near at hand, in which place of security Harry saw his assailant safely lodged, and then sought his temporary home, wondering the while whether a similar attack had caused the disappearance of Lionel Redgrave, and also whether the man was taken who could bring the affair to light.