"He's been tryin' to murder me, and if you were a man, Joe Bindle, you'd kill 'im."
Bindle subjected the big man to an elaborate scrutiny. "Looks to me," he remarked drily, "as if someone's got in before me. Wot's 'appened?" He looked interrogatingly up at the policeman.
"'Oly 'Orace," he cried suddenly, as he caught sight of the miscellaneous collection of furniture that lay about the geranium bed. "What's that little pawnshop a-doin' on our front garden?"
With the aid of the rag-and-bone man and the woman with the tweed cap and hat-pin, the whole situation was explained and expounded to both Bindle and the policeman.
When he had heard everything, Bindle turned to the big man, who stood sulkily awaiting events.
"Now, look 'ere, cully," he said. "You didn't oughter start doin' them sort o' things with a figure like yours. When Mrs. B. gets 'old of a broom, or a mop, the safest thing to do is to draw in your solar-plexus an' run. It 'urts less. Now, speakin' as a Christian to a bloomin' 'eathen wot's done 'imself pretty well, judgin' from the size of 'is pinafore, you'd better send for the coachman, 'arness up that there dray o' yours, carry orf them bits o' sticks an' let bygones be bygones. Ain't that good advice?" He turned to the policeman for corroboration.
There was a flicker of a smile at the corners of the policeman's mouth, which seemed not so very many years before to have been lisping baby language. He looked at the big man. It was not for him to advise.
"'Ere, Charley, blaaarst you," cried the big man, pushing his way to the gate. He had decided that the dice had gone against him. "Get them things on to the blinkin' barrer, you stutterin' young pup. Wot the purple——"
"Here, that's enough of that," said a quiet, determined voice, and the soft lines of the policeman's face hardened.
"Wot she want to say it was to let for?" he grumbled as he loped towards the hand-cart.