"Don't talk to me, you little trull, or you'll drive me to tear your eyes out. Take that." With the back of her disengaged hand she struck the girl's cheek. CHAPTER II "GO YOUR OWN WAY YOU UNGRATEFUL MINX" The mob roared approval at the prospect of a fight, and though the combatants were unfairly matched some of the ruffians urged the girl to retaliate. "Go for her hair, little un," one shouted. "There's plenty of it. Once you get a fair hold and tear out a handful she'll squeak, I'll warrant." The advice was not taken and maybe nobody expected it would be. Anyway, before Sally could renew the attack her arm was seized by a man, slight in stature and with a naturally humorous expression on his lean narrow face and in his bright twinkling eyes. "Enough of this brawling, mistress. If you _must_ fight choose someone as big and as strong as yourself, not a lambkin." The crowd knew him and whispers went round. "That's Spiller--Jemmy Spiller the famous play actor." "No, is it though. Lord, he can make folks laugh--ah, split their sides a'most. I see him last Saturday at Master Rich's theayter in the Fields, and I thought I should ha' died." Spiller was better at making people laugh than at holding an infuriated woman. But he had two friends with him, stalwart butchers from Clare Market, and he turned the task over to them with the remark that they were used to handling mad cattle. At this point Gay and Leveridge forced their way through the crowd. Gay saw the red angry mark on the girl's pallid face and guessed the cause. He drew her gently to him. "Run inside the house. I'll join you presently," he whispered. She thanked him with her eyes and vanished. Gay turned to Spiller. "You deserve a double benefit at Drury Lane, Jemmy, for what you did just now. That wild cat was about to use her claws," said he. "Aye, and her teeth too, Mr. Gay." "You'll need a mouthful of mountain port after that tussle. And your friends as well, when they've disposed of Mistress Salisbury." The butchers had removed her out of harm's way. Some of her lady friends and sympathisers had joined her; and a couple of young "bloods" who had come to see the fun of an execution, with money burning holes in their pockets, being captured, the party subsided into the "Bowl" where a bottle of wine washed away the remembrance of Sally Salisbury's grievance. But she vowed vengeance on the "squalling chit" sooner or later. Meanwhile the object of Sally Salisbury's hoped for revenge was sitting in a dark corner of the coffee room of the Maiden Head tavern. She felt terribly embarrassed and answered Bolingbroke's compliments in monosyllables. He pressed her to take some wine but she refused. To her great relief he did not trouble her with attentions. Then Gay entering with Spiller and his butcher friends, and Leveridge, as soon as he could, approached her. "Tell me, Polly,--my tongue refuses to say Lavinia--how you have offended that vulgar passionate woman?"