“Bottom o’ Sydenham ’ill, sir,” chimed both constables as one. “Good morning, my friends. I must leave you to ponder this subject or I shall not get home to breakfast.” The two myrmidons of the law stepped together into the middle of the road to watch this astonishing figure ascend out of their ken. “Well, if ’e don’t beat all as ever I ’eard!” was the comment of Z9. “’E’s not got ’er off yet, and ’e won’t nuther,” rejoined X012. “She’s a wrong un; an’ if they let ’er off, it won’t be fair to peace.” “Well, ’e can talk. ’E kind of got ’old of me. I could ha’ stood there all day.” “’E kind o’ did me too, but I should shake him off in court. You’ll see the beak will put a muzzle on ’im. He warn’t talkin’ law, and you’re no good in court unless you talk law. The old bloke and them K. C.’s will not stand that sort o’ lip, see if they does.” “Well, ’ere’s the sergeant comin’. But just to show there’s no ill-feelin’, I’ll ’ave ’arf a pint with you, mate, that ’e gets her off.” “Make it a pint, matey. A pint seems more legal.” XV TRUTH’S CHAMPION Northcote had only a hazy notion of his whereabouts. He had never been in these high latitudes before. He had a dim idea that London lay “over there;” but upon ascending the steep hill that lay before him, he found that “over there” was merged in the dark and enormous bulk of the Crystal Palace. “Whitcomb was right in his topography,” he laughed. “This is the route he predicted I should take; therefore it is a perfectly fair inference to regard it as the wrong one.” He hailed yet another minion of the law, who no less than his brethren was communicative. “You are going away from London as fast as your legs will take you,” said Z201, and proceeded to set a course which in itself was so intricate that the young man by no means pledged himself to follow it. The terrific central energy still driving him, the wayfarer strode forth through the rain with an undiminished vigor. By now his clothes were saturated and lay upon him heavily. But nothing could abate the force of these concentrated fires which bore him so lightly mile after mile. Not only did they burn with splendor, but also with a vital clarity. His lips moved with the phrases that sprang upon them; the sense of dull power, of unused native force, which had oppressed him like a nightmare during many nights and days, had been fused all at once into an immense fecundity of expression. Each minute blood-vessel that formed a web round the ball of crystallized energy that was his brain was big with its own peculiar, original, and special idea. The strangest vistas had opened before his eyes. His faculties in the first flush of their self-consciousness had grown insolent and overbearing.