At this moment the workman seized Sir Charles by the collar. Sir Charles, though an older man, was by no means weak; his tall body was well-knit and active, and he felt unaccountably brawny that morning; he got the thumb and forefinger of his left hand like a pitchfork under his opponent’s chin, and there began what promised to be a very pretty scuffle. Everybody on the top of the bus got up, a woman tittered, and a large consequential fellow who attempted to interfere received a violent backhander from the huge left hand of the Operative, the wrist of which was firmly grasped by the right of the Politician and was struggling in the air. The bus stopped, a crowd gathered, the workman, as is customary with hard-working people, was easily appeased; Sir Charles, a good deal ruffled, got off the bus, and pressing two shillings into the hand of a policeman who was preparing to take notes, said loudly: “That’s all right! You can’t do anything against _me_, and of course I can prevent the thing getting into the papers; but it’s always better to give a policeman money,--safe rule!” With that he wormed his way through the increasing mob and disappeared into a taxi, the driver of which, with singular sagacity, drove off rapidly without asking for any direction. When he was well out of it, Repton put his head out of the window and addressed the driver in the following remarkable words: “I don’t really know where you’d better go: of course if you go to my Club I could change there” (his collar was torn off him and his hat was badly battered) “but on the whole you’d better take me to Guy’s--No you hadn’t, go to the Club. Stop at a Boy Messenger’s on your way.” “What Club, sir?” asked the driver with the deference due to a man at once wealthy and mad. “You won’t know it,” said Sir Charles kindly and still craning in a constrained manner out of the window. “By the way, why don’t they have a speaking-tube or something from inside to you people? It’s awkward turning one’s head outside like a snake. You won’t know it, but I’ll shout to you when we get to the bottom of St. James’s Street.” The driver, now convinced that he had to do with something quite out of the ordinary, touched his cap in a manner almost military, and fled through the streets of London. At a Boy Messenger’s office Sir Charles sent home for clothes and for a change, got to his Club, informed the astonished porter that it was a very fine day, that he had just had a fight on the top of a bus, that by God the Johnnie didn’t know who he was tackling! He, Sir Charles, was no longer a young man, but he would have shown him what an upper cut was if he could have got a free swing! He proceeded to illustrate the nature of this fence--then suddenly asked for his letters, and for a dressing-room.