"Wot now, Captain?" said Lieutenant Barney, whose wavering loyalties had been steadied only an hour ago by the gift of an india-rubber sucker. Philip's heart fluttered a little unquietly. In the mere abstract conception of chase there had been much of the poetical. In the presence of the dead cat the fogs of illusion thinned. Shame tugged at his heart-strings. But the faultless figure of Dandy Dave stood before him. With little knowledge of the implication of his words, "Flay 'im!" he said harshly. "The merchants call this morn!"
Lieutenant Barney inserted a broken blade below the fringe of the cat's eye. He tugged. Philip looked down. The hideous mess which ensued spattered Philip's brain like a pat of filth. He ran quickly from the yard and was violently sick for many minutes.... The trapper aspect of Captain Philip's authority did not again assert itself.
Behind the Bridgeway Elementary School extended a huge and desolate brick-croft. Here the "gang" frequently undertook expeditions to the Himalayas and the two Poles. Volcanoes were discovered and duly charted. Wide lakes of clayey yellow water were navigated. It was a point of honour with the "gang" that the lakes must be definitely crossed from border to border, not merely circumvented. But while the "gang" miserably splashed along and drew their clogged boots to the further side, Captain Philip serenely walked the whole way round and from his dry vantage encouraged his men to safety. It would never do for the Doomington counterpart of Dandy Dave to smirch his own limbs alongside of the vulgar herd.
The last episode in the captaincy of Philip was the Liberation of Princess Lena, the immediate inspiration of which was the gallant rescue by Dandy Dave of the daughter of the President of the American Republic from a cellar below the very basement of the White House.
Lena Myer lived in Angel Street and kept irregular hours. The days of her flirtations had already begun. When she returned one evening it was arranged that the "gang" was to seize her, gag her, and carry her away to the stable of the lemonade works adjacent to the wire factory—whither Lieutenant Barney had discovered a secret entrance. Here for the space of an hour she was to be bound to a support. The clattering of horses was to be heard in the courtyard and Captain Philip, sweeping in magnificently, was to cut her bonds, lay her captors in the dust and deliver her with a flourish to her distracted parents.
Of course, Lena herself was not to be informed of the somewhat negative part reserved for her. She had already attained her "stuck-up" days, but her beauty and her father's wealth, (he was a barber), evidently cast her for the situation.
All fell out as arranged. As she entered the darkest patch of Angel Street a black mass fell on her, choked her with rags, and bore her kicking furiously to the stable, where she was fastened to a wooden support. Many desolate minutes passed, during which her moans struck so heavy a chill into the hearts of the desperadoes that at last they removed the rags from her mouth. Immediately such a foul stream of imprecation fell from her virginal lips, that the bloodthirsty gang withdrew trembling towards the spider-webbed walls. She threatened them venomously with the vengeance of her admirers. Some one made a tentative advance in her direction. She uttered a piercing scream and he recoiled with knocking knees. The "gang" had experienced fights with "gangs" from other streets; the "gang" even had compassed the discomfiture of a policeman. But a situation like this, where the incalculable feminine threw all their generalizations into rout, left them shorn of philosophy.
"Jem Cohen 'll 'ave your eyes out, yer rotten lot 'er lice!" said the maiden delicately.
A clatter in the yard beyond the stable, cunningly caused by the play of two slates on the cobbles, produced sudden silence. Captain Philip! A tremendous wave of dislike for Captain Philip swept over his supporters! Nobody but a "bouncer" like that Philip Massel could have involved them in so unnatural a situation. By crikey! They'd show him, by jemmy, wouldn't they just!
Philip rushed into the stable's darkness.