The morning after the meeting in the Market Place Edward Beaumont was seated in a capacious easy chair in his own room in the office in Queen Street, smoking a well-seasoned meerschaum pipe, and reading the “Leeds Mercury” of the day. Edward felt a sort of proprietorship in the winged messenger from the fact, which he regarded with satisfaction, that his great-grandfather had purchased the first issue of the paper a hundred years before, and the subscription to that journal had been piously continued in the family down to his own day, though he flattered himself he had considerably overpast the cautious Liberalism but slightly differentiated from Whiggery, of the “Mercury.” He had skimmed the local news, pshaw’d over the leading articles, and was enjoying the London Letter from our Own Correspondent, usually attributed to a rising publicist, when Storth bustled into the room. “There’s not much for Petty Sessions this morning, Beaumont; a couple of assaults, a profane and obscene, and a bastardy; but there’s one case you’ll have to put all you know into. You remember that girl we heard last night in the Market Place?” “The Salvation Army girl?” “That’s the party. Well, she’s in my room now.” “What’s the trouble?” “Well, here’s the brief. It seems she was staying in Matt Duskin’s Lodging House last night.” “In Matt Duskin’s Lodging House in Kirkgate?” “Nowhere else, as I’m a sinner, and a lively time of it she must have had before they settled down for the night and went to bed.” “I should imagine the lively time for a lodger at Matt’s comes after he gets into bed,” said Beaumont, smiling. “The place must be alive with vermin. But what’s the case?” “You remember Pat Sullivan that’s been in trouble with the police so often and that they’re so afraid of? They say it took three of them to get him to the station last night. Well, he’s about half-killed another of Duskin’s select assortment of lodgers, and all Kirkgate and his wife will be in Court this morning to see the last of Sullivan for a few months anyway. He’s sure to be sent down. Ward will work for a committal without the option, and the constables on that beat will do their nightly prowl all the more serenely when they know Pat’s comfortably snoring on a plank bed in Wakefield gaol.” “Miss—the Salvation Army girl’s in your room, you say. What’s she got to do with it?” “There’s her and Sullivan’s wife in tears and a shawl and half-a-dozen more of the quality. They say Pat didn’t begin it. But it’ll be no good. Pat’s booked this journey, you bet. Anyhow, here’s your brief, and it’s about time you were off to Court.” “I think I’ll speak to the Young lady first. Ask her to come here, will you, Sam?”