The circle of lamplight became as if by mutual consent a general rendezvous. Three grey-clad policemen, tough, clean-shaven men with keen eyes and square jaws, stood there, revolver in one hand, night-stick in the other. Psmith, hatless and dusty, joined them. Billy Windsor and the Kid, the latter bleeding freely from his left ear, the lobe of which had been chipped by a bullet, were the last to arrive. "What's bin the rough house?" inquired one of the policemen, mildly interested. "Do you know a sportsman of the name of Repetto?" inquired Psmith. "Jack Repetto! Sure." "He belongs to the Three Points," said another intelligent officer, as one naming some fashionable club. "When next you see him," said Psmith, "I should be obliged if you would use your authority to make him buy me a new hat. I could do with another pair of trousers, too; but I will not press the trousers. A new hat, is, however, essential. Mine has a six-inch hole in it." "Shot at you, did they?" said one of the policemen, as who should say, "Dash the lads, they're always up to some of their larks." "Shot at us!" burst out the ruffled Kid. "What do you think's bin happening? Think an aeroplane ran into my ear and took half of it off? Think the noise was somebody opening bottles of pop? Think those guys that sneaked off down the road was just training for a Marathon?" "Comrade Brady," said Psmith, "touches the spot. He--" "Say, are you Kid Brady?" inquired one of the officers. For the first time the constabulary had begun to display any real animation. "Reckoned I'd seen you somewhere!" said another. "You licked Cyclone Al. all right, Kid, I hear." "And who but a bone-head thought he wouldn't?" demanded the third warmly. "He could whip a dozen Cyclone Al.'s in the same evening with his eyes shut." "He's the next champeen," admitted the first speaker. "If he puts it over Jimmy Garvin," argued the second. "Jimmy Garvin!" cried the third. "He can whip twenty Jimmy Garvins with his feet tied. I tell you--" "I am loath," observed Psmith, "to interrupt this very impressive brain-barbecue, but, trivial as it may seem to you, to me there is a certain interest in this other little matter of my ruined hat. I know that it may strike you as hypersensitive of us to protest against being riddled with bullets, but--" "Well, what's bin doin'?" inquired the Force. It was a nuisance, this perpetual harping on trifles when the deep question of the light-weight Championship of the World was under discussion, but the sooner it was attended to, the sooner it would be over. Billy Windsor undertook to explain. "The Three Points laid for us," he said. "Jack Repetto was bossing the crowd. I don't know who the rest were. The Kid put one over on to Jack Repetto's chin, and we were asking him a few questions when the rest came back, and started into shooting. Then we got to cover quick, and you came up and they beat it."