I laid my hand on his arm. With a movement of fury he shook it off and began to back away from me. Another boy had come up against the messenger and lodged there like a leaf in a stream, caught in an eddy. I heard him say, "What’s on?" and the other answered: "Don’t know but I guess it’s the movies." And they both looked round for the camera man. I don’t think Willitts heard them. His back was that way and his face to me, hard as iron and savage as a hungry wolf’s. He tried to speak low and soothing: "Now ’old your tongue, don’t make such a fuss. I’ll give you something and you go off quiet and respectable." His hand felt in his pocket and I raised a loud, tearful howl: "_Money!_ Is it money you’re offering? What’s money to me whose heart you’ve broken?" "I don’t see no camera man," came the messenger boy’s voice. "Aw, he’s in one of them wagons," said the other. "I’ve seen ’em in wagons." The perspiration was on Willitts’ forehead in beads, he was whitening round the mouth. Putting his face close down to mine he breathed out through his teeth: "What in ’ell do you want?" "_You!_" I cried and out of the tail of my eye I saw a taxi shoot round the corner from Fifth Avenue. Willitts drew away from me, shrunk together for a race. I saw it and I knew even now, with O’Malley plunging through the traffic, it might be too late. Embracing is not my strong suit, no man but my lawful husband ever felt my arms about him. But duty’s a strong word with me and then my sporting blood was up. So with my teeth set, I just made a lunge at that crook and clasped him like an octopus. I didn’t know a man was so much stronger than a woman. Willitts wasn’t much taller than I and he was a thin little shrimp, but believe me, he was as tough as leather and as slippery as an eel. I could see the two boys, delighted, drinking it in, and a dray man in a jumper, drop a crate and come up on the run, bawling: "Say, you feller, let the lady alone," The boys chorused out: "Aw, keep out—it’s the movies!" Willitts must have heard too, and I guess he saw his chance, for he suddenly squirmed one arm loose, and whang! came a blow on the side of my head. It might have seemed part of the play but he did it too hard—calculated wrong in his excitement. I let go, seeing everything—the houses, the sky, the crowd that seemed to start up out of the pavements—whirling round and shot over with zigzags. There was a roaring noise in my ears and all about, and I dropped over into somebody’s arms, things getting swimmy and dark.