"Ananias!" came Mrs. Bindle's uncompromising retort.
"Do you want to charge her?" asked the policeman brusquely.
"Serves 'im jolly well right," cried the woman with the tweed cap and hat-pin, pushing her way in front of a big man who obstructed her view.
"Oughter be run-in 'isself," agreed a pallid woman with a shawl over her head.
"Look wot 'e done to 'er garding," mumbled the rag-and-bone man, pointing at the flower-bed with the air of one who has just made an important discovery.
"It's the likes of 'im wot makes strikes," commented the woman in the dolman. "Blinkin' profiteer."
"She's got pluck, any'ow," said a telephone mechanic, who had joined the crowd just before Charley's father had bent before the wind of Mrs. Bindle's displeasure. "Knocked 'im out in the first round. Regular George Carpenter," he added.
"You get them things out of my garden. If you don't I'll give you in charge."
The big man blinked, a puzzled expression creeping into his eyes. He looked at the policeman uncomprehendingly. This was an aspect of the case that had not, hitherto, struck him.
"Are they your things?" asked the policeman, intent upon disentangling the situation before proceeding to use the pencil, the point of which he was meditatively sucking.