l roar was lost in the din.

There was a rush of heavy police boots on the stairs, the lights were
suddenly turned out, and in the dark a wild scramble for liberty.
Someone smashed a window that was not barred, and a swarm of men fought
round the opening, dropping one by one on to the roof of some stables.
The first man through shouted something and tried to push back, but a
frenzied stream of men pushed him and the others into the arms of the
police, who had marked this exit beforehand. Chook found himself on
the roof, bleeding from a cut lip, and hatless. Below him men were
crouching on the roofs like cats, to be picked off at the leisure of
the police.

He could never understand how he escaped. He stood on the roof
awaiting capture quietly, as resistance was useless, picked up a hat
two sizes too large for him, and, walking slowly to the end of the
roof, ducked suddenly under an old signboard that was nailed to a
chimney. Every moment he expected a John to walk up to him, but, to
his amazement, none came. As a man may walk unhurt amid a shower of
bullets, he had walked unseen under twenty policemen's eyes. From
Castlereagh Street came a murmur of voices. The theatres were out, and
a huge crowd, fresh from the painted scenes and stale odours of the
stalls and gallery, watched with hilarious interest the harlequinade on
the roofs. In half an hour a procession was formed, two deep, guarded
by the police, and followed by a crowd stumbling over one another to
keep pace with it, shouting words of encouragement and sympathy to the
prisoners. Five minutes later Chook slithered down a veranda post, a
free man, and walked quietly to the tram.

CHAPTER 18

THE "ANGEL" LOSES A CUSTOMER

Six months after the death of Mrs Yabsley, Ada and Mrs Herring sat in
the back parlour of the Angel sipping brandy. They had drunk their
fill and it was time to be going, but Ada had no desire to move. She
tapped her foot gently as she listened to the other woman's ceaseless
flow of talk, but her mind was elsewhere. She had reached the stage
when the world seemed a delightful place to live in; when it was a
pleasure to watch the people moving and gesticulating like figures in a
play, without jar or fret, as machines move on well-oiled cogs.

There was nothing to show that she had been drinking, except an
uncertain smile that rippled over her heavy features as the wind breaks
the surface of smooth water. Mrs Herring was