And if only he could bring off a certain jump he had in mind, there were other dodges—.... In the village street an informal assembly of leading citizens, a little recovered now from their first nervousness about flying tiles, discussed the problem of Bealby. There was Mumby, the draper and vegetarian, with the bass voice and the big black beard. He advocated the fire engine. He was one of the volunteer fire brigade and never so happy as when he was wearing his helmet. He had come out of his shop at the shouting. Schocks the butcher, and his boy were also in the street. Schocks’s yard, with its heap of manure and fodder, bounded the new house on the left. Rymell the vet emerged from the billiard room of the White Hart, and with his head a little on one side was watching Bealby and replying attentively to the baker, who was asking him a number of questions that struck him as irrelevant. All the White Hart people were in the street. “I suppose, Mr. Rymell,” said the baker, “there’s a mort of dangerous things in a man’s belly round about ’is Stummick?” “Tiles,” said Mr. Rymell. “Loose bricks. It wouldn’t do if he started dropping those.” “I was saying, Mr. Rymell,” said the baker, after a pause for digestion, “is a man likely to be injured badly by a Blaw in his stummick?” Mr. Rymell stared at him for a moment with unresponsive eyes. “More likely to get you in the head,” he said, and then, “Here! What’s that fool of a carpenter going to do?” The tramp was hovering on the outskirts of the group of besiegers, vindictive but dispirited. He had been brought to from his fit and given a shilling by the old gentleman, but he was dreadfully wet between his shirt—he wore a shirt, under three waistcoats and a coat—and his skin, because the old gentleman’s method of revival had been to syringe him suddenly with cold water. It had made him weep with astonishment and misery. Now he saw no advantage in claiming Bealby publicly. His part, he felt, was rather a waiting one. What he had to say to Bealby could be best said without the assistance of a third person. And he wanted to understand more of this talk about a reward. If there was a reward out for Bealby— “That’s not a bad dodge!” said Rymell, changing his opinion of the foreman suddenly as that individual began his ascent of the ladder with a bricklayer’s hod carried shield-wise above his head. He went up with difficulty and slowly because of the extreme care he took to keep his head protected. But no tiles came. Bealby had discovered a more dangerous attack developing inside the house and was already in retreat down the other side of the building.