Next moment Coles had scrambled to his feet again and was staring up at his window and shouting for assistance.
“Hi! Hi! Come down here. There’s a gang of them and they’re setting about me!”
Henry turned wretchedly to Rouse.
“My glasses,” said he. “Did you see them fall? D’you know where they are? I should very much like the frames. I’ll have to find the frames.”
Rouse made a few light passes over his hand, drew his cap from his head and held it over his outstretched hand. At last he slowly raised it by the tassel. The frames lay in his open palm.
“There they are, sir,” said he. “The same that you saw this gentleman throw into the audience.... Am I right, sir?”
He turned sharply. There had come a sudden clatter of feet upon the stairs of Morley’s and a handful of strangely excited young men were tumbling pell-mell out of the door. Nobody had noticed Coles. He appeared to have been merely waiting for aid. Yet at the sound of approaching friends he took courage again. He fixed Rouse with a watery eye, then he leaped viciously upon him from behind. His feet were intertwined with Rouse’s legs. There was a short sharp struggle. Next moment Rouse was free and had turned, judged his distance, and struck accurately and with full force. The blow took Coles on the cheek-bone and was altogether too much for him. He threw up his hands, spun sideways and fell on his back. And as he lay he moaned softly to himself:
“Come on, oh, come on, you chaps! They’re all setting about me ... all of them.”
The chaps answered with a shout of allegiance and sprang upon his assailants. There were four of them, and the first ran into Terence’s straight left and recoiled with his hands to his face. The next seized Rouse in his arms and, loudly shouting, endeavoured to secure a ju-jitsu hold upon his neck. Rouse braced himself, wrenched away an arm and hit downwards with all his strength at the other’s chin.
The move was eminently successful, but it was too late. The last members of the party had come up, and one had sprung on to his back and was bearing him down. The other had almost got him by the ankles when Terence came down on top of him with the full weight of his body, and he met the gravel with his face.