dragged and pushed into the circle by the foremost of the pursuers.

‘Yes,’ said the gentleman, ‘I am afraid it is the boy.’

‘Afraid!’ murmured the crowd. ‘That’s a good ‘un!’

‘Poor fellow!’ said the gentleman, ‘he has hurt himself.’

‘I did that, sir,’ said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; ‘and preciously I cut my knuckle agin’ his mouth. I stopped him, sir.’

The fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his pains; but, the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of dislike, look anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away himself: which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and thus have afforded another chase, had not a police officer