ing
on it. Taking it as a ground for encouragement, he loosed his tongue yet
more outrageously, and so battered the unhappy subject of his censures
that my ears tingled, and suddenly I strode quickly up to the group,
intent on silencing him; but a great brawny porter, with a dirty red
face, was beforehand with me. Elbowing his way irresistibly through the
ranks, he set himself squarely before Phineas, and, wagging his head
significantly enough, growled out:

"Say what you will of Castlemaine and the rest, Master Ranter, but keep
your tongue off Nelly."

A murmur of applause ran round. They knew Nelly: here in the Lane was
her kingdom.

"Let Nelly alone," said the porter, "if you value whole bones, master."

Phineas was no coward, and threats served only to fan the flame of his
zeal. I had started to stop his mouth; it seemed likely that I must
employ myself in saving his head. His lean frame would crack and break
in the grasp of his mighty assailant, and I was loth that the fool
should come to harm; so I began to push my way through towards the pair,
and arrived just as Phineas, having shot a most pointed dart, was about
to pay for his too great skill with a blow from the porter's
mutton-fist. I caught the fellow's arm as he raised it, and he turned
fiercely on me, growling, "Are you his friend, then?"

"Not I," I answered. "But you'd kill him, man."

"Let him heed what he says, then. Kill him! Ay, and spare him readily!"

The affair looked awkward enough, for the feeling was all one way, and I
could do little to hinder any violence. A girl in the crowd reminded me
of my helplessness, touching my wounded arm lightly, and saying, "Are
you hungry for more fighting, sir?"

"He's a madman," said I. "Let him alone; who heeds what he says?"

Friend Phineas did not take my defence in good part.

"Mad, am I?" he roared, beating with his fist on his Bible. "You'll know
who was mad when you lie howling in hell fire. And with you that----"
And on he went again at poor Nell.

The great porter could endure no more. With a seemingly gentle motion of
his hand he thrust me aside, pushing me on to the bosom of a buxom
flower-girl who, laughing boisterously, wound a pair of sturdy red arms
round me. Then he stepped forward, and seizing Phineas by the scruff of
the neck shook him as a dog shakes a rat. To what more violence he would
have proceeded I do not know; for suddenly from above us, out of a
window of the Cock and Pie,