of plenty of fresh air and exercise was intolerable, and I ultimately resolved that I would take the Queen's shilling, and submit to barrack discipline and all the indignities of existence among my social inferiors rather than bind myself for ever to the misery of the city. Indeed, I had quite made up my mind to journey to Trafalgar Square, in order to interview one of the recruiting sergeants generally to be found at the north-eastern corner of that favourite rendezvous, when something happened to set my ideas flowing in a new channel.

My father's house, in our days of prosperity, had been one of those fine mansions overlooking Streatham Common; and though I had left the dismally stripped and dismantled place as soon as the miserable formalities of funeral and sale were over, I had taken a cheap lodging in Lower Streatham, because in the chaos of my ideas and plans it appeared to me that I might as well stay in the neighbourhood of my old home as anywhere else, until the fifty pounds still remaining to my credit at my Oxford bankers had gone the way of all cash, or until I should have made up my bewildered mind as to where, in all this wide and pitiless world, I should go for a living.

I had practically determined, as I say, to enlist, and was walking one warm summer evening along the green lane which runs from Thornton Heath to Lower Streatham, deep in somewhat melancholy reflection upon the step I was about to take, when a noise of scuffling and bad language distracted my thoughts from the contemplation of to-morrow's barrack-yard trials, and brought them up with a run to the consideration of the present instant. I suppose the noise that they were themselves making prevented the four persons taking part in the scrimmage, which I now suddenly saw, from observing my approach, for they continued to tussle and to wrangle on their side of the hedge, while I watched them for a moment from mine, desiring, if possible, to discover what the quarrel was about and on which side the right lay, if either.

Then I soon perceived that the fight was an iniquitous and unequal one, for three younger men had set upon one elderly person and were obviously engaged in attempting to relieve him of his money and valuables, an attempt which the old gentleman made gallant but naturally futile efforts to frustrate, hitting out right valiantly with his umbrella, but doing far more violence to the Queen's English than to the heads and persons of his assailants, upon whom the blows of his feeble weapon produced little effect.

I need scarcely say that, having ascertained what was passing, I did not waste time in making up my mind as to which side should receive the favour of my support, and in far less time than it takes to write the words, I had burst through the hedge and rushed to the assistance of the swearing and furious old gentleman.

At my appearance one of the fellows bolted like a hare across the field towards Norbury, and I saw no more of him. Now, I had paid some little attention to the study of self-defence while at Oxford, and though the remaining two rascals stood up to me for a moment, I soon placed my right fist in so convincing a manner upon the tip of the nose of one that he went down like a nine-pin and lay where he fell, while the other, after feinting and dodging and ducking for a few seconds as I squared up to him with the intention, if necessary, of treating him like his fellow, suddenly turned, darted through the hedge, and was away down the lane towards Thornton Heath in the twinkling of an eye, I following.

Away we went at hundred-yards' speed, he leading by about ten paces, and for about fifty yards it was anybody's race. Then I began to gain, and, seeing this, the fellow threw something down and ran on; he careered for another half hundred paces and then ridded himself of something else; and I, fearing, if I continued the pursuit, to lose my chance of recovering the old man's property—which, I rightly conjectured, was what the fellow had relieved himself of—stopped to pick it up while I could. I thus allowed my friend to escape, which was, of course, what he most desired at the moment, even more than the possession of the pocket-book and the gold watch which I soon found in the road and recovered.

Then I returned to the spot where I had left my fallen foe and the old gentleman whose property had been the original cause of disagreement between the contending parties.

CHAPTER II

THE OLD MISER

I found my ally beating the prostrate enemy with his umbrella, and still using language which would have been unseemly in any person, and sounded doubly shocking in the mouth of an old man.

"Come," I said, "you needn't swear, sir; and I wouldn't continue to whack a man who is down, if I were you."

"Kill him! kill him—the cowardly rascal! Kick him on the head and kill him!" shrieked the infuriated old gentleman; "they have robbed me between them, and I'll have his life for it! I'm a poor man, and they've taken my all; kick him in the head, if you're a man, and kill him!"

I could not help laughing. "It's because I'm a man that I shall do nothing of the kind," I said. "Stop dabbing at him with your umbrella and attend to business; here's your property—take it." I presented him with his pocket-book and watch as I spoke, and never did I behold so complete a metamorphosis in the expression of a man's face as now passed over his. He seized his property with both hands and hugged it to his breast. He beamed and chuckled over it, mumbling inarticulate words of delight as he fondly drew forth a bundle of notes and counted them.

It struck me that here was a considerable sum of money for a poor man to carry about with him; for though he jealously hid from me the figures that would have revealed the value of the notes, I was able to observe that there were at least fifteen or twenty of these, which, even supposing them to have been mere "rivers," would represent a decidedly respectable sum. The old fellow observed me watching him.

"Private papers, private papers!" he muttered; "letters from my dead wife that I would not lose for their weight in diamonds!"

"You old humbug!" I thought; "if ever you had a wife you starved her, I'll bet."

But the condition of our prostrate enemy began to give me some anxiety, and I was obliged to transfer my attention from the old miser to him. He lay groaning and snoring, his eyes shut, and his nose still bleeding a little. Suddenly he opened his eyes slightly and looked at the old man and at me. He scowled as he saw me, but his lips muttered "Water!"

"Go and fetch the man some water—you, sir," I said; "you can finish counting your notes afterwards. I would go, but I dare not leave him with you."

"Water for the rogue that robbed me? Not I," said the old fellow; "let him lie and rot first!"

"Then I will go," I said, for positively the rogue looked like expiring, and I was really anxious for him. If he were actually as bad as he looked there was not much danger in leaving him. I knew of a duck-pond near a farmhouse close by, and towards this I proceeded at my best speed, for the fellow must not be allowed to die—rascal though he undoubtedly was.

The rascal, it appeared, had no intention of dying, however, just at present; for when I