He staggered back, his eyes bulging, as Mrs. Bindle, armed with a large mop, which she had taken the precaution to wet, stood regarding him like an avenging fury. Her eyes blazed, and her nostrils were distended like those of a frightened thoroughbred.
Before the big man had time to splutter his protests, she had swung round the mop and brought the handle down with a crack upon his bare, bald head. Then, once more swinging round to the business end of the mop, she drew back a step and charged.
The mop got the big man just beneath the chin. For a moment he stood on one leg, his arms extended, like the figure of Mercury on the Piccadilly Circus fountain.
Mrs. Bindle gave another thrust to the mop, and down he went with a thud, his head coming with a sharp crack against the tiles of the path.
The crowd murmured its delight. Charley danced from one foot to the other, the expression on his face proving conclusively that the vacuous look with which he had arrived was merely a mask assumed for defensive purposes.
"Get up!"
Into these two words Mrs. Bindle precipitated an amount of feeling that thrilled the crowd. The big man, however, lay prone, his eyes fixed in fear upon the end of the mop.
"Get up!" repeated Mrs. Bindle. "I'll teach you to come disturbing a respectable home. Look at my garden."
As he still made no attempt to move, she turned suddenly and doubled along the passage, reappearing a moment later with a pail of water with which she had been washing out the scullery. Without a moment's hesitation she emptied the contents over the recumbent figure of the big man. The house-cloth fell across his eyes, like a bandage, and the hearthstone took him full on the nose.
"Oo-er!"