RONGS OF THE WORKING MAN."]

The public-houses of Burwell Road--and there were many of them for the
length of the street--were rather proud of Joe Hollends. He was a
perfected specimen of the work a pub produces. He was probably the most
persistent drunkard the Road possessed, and the periodical gathering in
of Joe by the police was one of the stock sights of the street. Many of
the inhabitants could be taken to the station by one policeman; some
required two; but Joe's average was four. He had been heard to boast
that on one occasion he had been accompanied to the station by seven
bobbies, but that was before the force had studied Joe and got him down
to his correct mathematical equivalent. Now they tripped him up, a
policeman taking one kicking leg and another the other, while the
remaining two attended to the upper part of his body. Thus they carried
him, followed by an admiring crowd, and watched by other envious
drunkards who had to content themselves with a single officer when they
went on a similar spree. Sometimes Joe managed to place a kick where it
would do the most good against the stomach of a policeman, and when the
officer rolled over there was for a few moments a renewal of the fight,
silent on the part of the men and vociferous on the part of the
drunkard, who had a fine flow of abusive language. Then the procession
went on again. It was perfectly useless to put Joe on the police
ambulance, for it required two men to sit on him while in transit, and
the barrow is not made to stand such a load.

Of course, when Joe staggered out of the pub and fell in the gutter, the
ambulance did its duty, and trundled Joe to his abiding place, but the
real fun occurred when Joe was gathered in during the third stage of his
debauch. He passed through the oratorical stage, then the maudlin or
sentimental stage, from which he emerged into the fighting stage, when
he was usually ejected into the street, where he forthwith began to make
Rome howl, and paint the town red. At this point the policeman's whistle
sounded, and the force knew Joe was on the warpath, and that duty called
them to the fray.

It was believed in the neighbourhood that Joe had been a college man,
and this gave him additional standing with his admirers. His eloquence
was undoubted, after several glasses varying in number according to the
strength of their contents, and a man who had heard the great political
speakers of the day admitted that none of the