We all wanted to return to the station--even the Princess was obviously ready to renounce her “little walk” through the town--but a glance behind showed its impossibility. All we could do was to keep on, the officer pointing out a side-street which he thought led back to the station in another direction. He kept on continually shouting vain appeals to the crowd, which became every moment denser, ruder and dirtier. It was the hour when the workshops and factories vomited forth their occupants for _Mittagessen_, so that it soon became a crowd composed largely of Socialists and Jewish Poles, who congregate in Königsberg. Unfortunately we took a wrong turning, and our road led through some of the worst quarters of the town. The cheering and hurrahing soon ceased, but the shouting and yelling went on; we were the centre of a dirty, frowsy mob, who smelt abominably, and treated our small group as though we were a show of some kind out for their amusement. The officer again appealed to the better feelings of the people, and begged the dirty children to remember what they had been taught in school, but they only laughed and darted in and out and laid their filthy hands on the dress of the Empress. In my younger more unregenerate days I had learned from a schoolboy brother a certain sudden grip at the back of the neck or collar which we often employed in any slight dispute. Our nurses and governesses always characterized it as “most unladylike,” which no doubt it was, but none the less effective; and as these horrible children grew bolder and more repulsive, and tried to dart between the Empress and the Princess, I found this old “choker,” as we had called it, very useful in intercepting them. As a yelling boy bumped along, he was suddenly “brought up short” in mid career and by a grip at the nape of his neck flung back among his comrades, helping to put them also into momentary confusion. Even this slight check was a great help, and although it was warm work for such a hot day, I continued unweariedly, with a certain sporting pleasure which struck me at the time as amusing, to capture one filthy youngster after another and fling him violently back into the roadway. The officer still shouted after policemen, and presently I became aware of one walking beside me, who was also aiding in the good work of “chucking out.” I think he had caught the idea from me. At any rate we toiled in tacit good-fellowship side by side for some time. Then at last a few more policemen were picked up and we got into a rather more respectable neighbourhood; but the crowd was still frightfully dense, and the policemen banged and thrust unmercifully. Sometimes quite innocent, unsuspecting people just coming out of their own doorways were taken by the shoulders and whirled back into their homes again, wondering, I am sure, if dynamite or an earthquake had struck them.