e a kangaroo, gathering his feet under him and proceeding by
a series of leaps, almost as if he were being shamefully pricked from
behind. At a corner he turned pale, terror-stricken eyes back on that
sinister group, and went on into the labyrinth of small streets.

But disaster, inglorious disaster, waited for Nikky. Peter Niburg, face
down on the pavement, was groaning, and Nikky had felled one man and was
starting on a second with the fighting appetite of twenty-three, when
something happened. One moment Nikky was smiling, with a cut lip, and
hair in his eyes, and the next he was dropped like an ox, by a blow from
behind. Landing between his shoulder-blades, it jerked his head back
with a snap, and sent him reeling. A second followed, delivered by a
huge fist.

Down went Nikky, and lay still.

The town slept on. Street brawls were not uncommon, especially in
the neighborhood of the Hungaria. Those who roused grumbled about
quarrelsome students, and slept again.

Perhaps two minutes later, Nikky got up. He was another minute in
locating himself. His cap lay in the gutter. Beside him, on his back,
lay a sprawling and stertorous figure, with, so quick the downfall, a
cane still hooked to his arm.

Nikky bent over Peter Niburg. Bending over made his head ache
abominably.

"Here, man!" he said. "Get up! Rouse yourself!"

Peter Niburg made an inarticulate reference to a piece of silk of
certain quality, and lay still. But his eyes opened slowly, and he
stared up at the stars. "A fine night," he said thickly. "A very
fine--" Suddenly he raised himself to a sitting posture. Terror gave him
strength. "I've been robbed," he said. "Robbed. I am ruined. I am dead."

"Tut," said Nikky, mopping his cut lip. "If you are dead, your spirit
speaks with an uncommonly lusty voice! Come, get up. We present together
a shameful picture of defeat."

But he raised Peter Niburg gently from the ground and, finding his knees
unstable, from fright or weakness, stood him against a house wall.
Peter Niburg, with rolling eyes, felt for his letter, and, the saints be
praised, found it.

"Ah!" he said, and straightened up. "After all it is not so bad as I
feared. They got nothing."

He made a manful effort to walk, but tottered reeled. Nikky caught him.

"Careful!" he said. "The colossus was doubtless the one who got us boxy,
and we are likely to feel his weight for some time. Where do you live?"

Peter Niburg was not for saying. He w