and, stopping, eyed Henry with a
baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know
him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned
against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are
pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly
had right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit
of kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he
had lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no
other course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it.
But Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought
far otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking
at a defenceless bird with a stick.

She turned to Freddie, who had come up at a gallop and was wondering
why the deuce this sort of thing happened to him out of a city of six
millions.

"Make him stop, Freddie!"

"Oh, I say, you know, what?"

"Can't you see he's hurting the poor thing? Make him leave off!
Brute!" she added to Henry (for whom one's heart bleeds), as he jabbed
once again at his adversary.

Freddie stepped reluctantly up to Henry, and tapped him on the
shoulder. Freddie was one of those men who have a rooted idea that a
conversation of this sort can only be begun by a tap on the shoulder.

"'Look here, you know, you can't do this sort of thing, you know!"
said Freddie.

Henry raised a scarlet face.

"'Oo are _you_?" he demanded.

This attack from the rear, coming on top of his other troubles, tried
his restraint sorely.

"Well--" Freddie hesitated. It seemed silly to offer the fellow one of
his cards. "Well, as a matter of fact, my name's Rooke...."

"And who," pursued Henry, "arsked _you_ to come shoving your ugly mug
in 'ere?"

"Well, if you put it that way...."

"'E comes messing abart," said Henry complainingly, addressing the
universe, "and interfering in what don't concern 'im and mucking
around and interfering and messing abart.... Why," he broke off in a
sudden burst of eloquence, "I could eat two of you for a relish wiv me
tea, even if you '_ave_ got white spats!"

Here Erb, who had contributed nothing to the conversation, remarked
"Ah!" and expectorated on the sidewalk. The point, one gathers, seemed
to Erb well taken. A neat thrust, was Erb's verdict.

"Just because you've got white spats," proceeded Henry, on whose
sensitive mind these adjuncts of the costume of