us peer, craning his neck in horror,
for the girl seemed to be trying to kiss him.

But the bruiser, as he ran forward, found himself entangled with the old
lady.

"Out o' the way, marm!" he cried. "Out o' the way, I say!" and pushed
her violently aside.

"Oh, you rude, rude man!" she shrieked, springing back in front of him.
"He hustled me, good people; you saw him hustle me! A clergyman, but no
gentleman! What! you would treat a lady so--you would do it again? Oh,
I could slap, slap, slap you!"

And with each repetition of the word, with extraordinary swiftness, her
open palm rang upon the prizefighter's cheek.

The crowd buzzed with amazement and delight.

"Hooper! Hooper!" cried Lord Barrymore once more, for he was still
struggling in the ever-closer embrace of the unwieldy and amorous Amelia.

The bully again pushed forward to the aid of his patron, but again the
elderly lady confronted him, her head back, her left arm extended, her
whole attitude, to his amazement, that of an expert boxer.

The prizefighter's brutal nature was roused. Woman or no woman, he would
show the murmuring crowd what it meant to cross the path of the Tinman.
She had struck him. She must take the consequence. No one should square
up to him with impunity. He swung his right with a curse. The bonnet
instantly ducked under his arm, and a line of razor-like knuckles left an
open cut under his eye.

Amid wild cries of delight and encouragement from the dense circle of
spectators, the lady danced round the sham clergyman, dodging his
ponderous blows, slipping under his arms, and smacking back at him most
successfully. Once she tripped and fell over her own skirt, but was up
and at him again in an instant.

"You vulgar fellow!" she shrieked. "Would you strike a helpless woman!
Take that! Oh, you rude and ill-bred man!"

Bully Hooper was cowed for the first time in his life by the
extraordinary thing that he was fighting. The creature was as elusive as
a shadow, and yet the blood was dripping down his chin from the effects
of the blows. He shrank back with an amazed face from so uncanny an
antagonist. And in the moment that he did so his spell was for ever
broken. Only success could hold it. A check was fatal. In all the
crowd there was scarce one who was not nursing some grievance against
master or man, and waiting for that moment of weakness in which to
revenge it.

With a growl of rage the circle closed in. The