“Was it Hereward the Wake, by chance?” exclaimed his auditor. “Hereward the Last of the English?” “That's the man,” cried Tembarom. “An engaging ruffian and thief and murderer, and a touching one also,” commented the duke. “You liked him?” He really wanted to know. “I like the way he went after what he wanted to get, and the way he fought for his bit of England. By gee! When he went rushing into a fight, shouting and boasting and swinging his sword, I got hot in the collar. It was his England. What was old Bill doing there anyhow, darn him! Those chaps made him swim in their blood before they let him put the thing over. Good business! I'm glad they gave him all that was coming to him--hot and strong.” His sharp face had reddened and his voice rose high and nasal. There was a look of roused blood in him. “Are you a fighter from Fightersville?” the duke asked, far from unstirred himself. These things had become myths to most people, but here was Broadway in the midst of them unconsciously suggesting that it might not have done ill in the matter of swinging “Brain-Biter” itself. The modern entity slipped back again through the lengthened links of bygone centuries--back until it became T. Tembarom once more--casual though shrewd; ready and jocular. His eyes resumed their dry New York humor of expression as they fixed themselves on his wholly modern questioner. “I'll fight,” he said, “for what I've got to fight for, but not for a darned thing else. Not a darned thing.” “But you would fight,” smiled the duke, grimly. “Did you happen to remember that blood like that has come down to you? It was some drop of it which made you `hot in the collar' over that engaging savage roaring and slashing about him for his `bit of England.”' Tembarom seemed to think it out interestedly. “No, I did not,” he answered. “But I guess that's so. I guess it's so. Great Jakes! Think of me perhaps being sort of kin to fellows just like that. Some way, you couldn't help liking him. He was always making big breaks and bellowing out `The Wake! The Wake!' in season and out of season; but the way he got there--just got there!” He was oddly in sympathy with “the early savages here,” and as understandingly put himself into their places as he had put himself into Galton's. His New York comprehension of their berserker furies was apparently without limit. Strong partizan as he was of the last of the English, however, he admitted that William of Normandy had “got in some good work, though it wasn't square.” “He was a big man,” he ended. “If he hadn't been the kind he was I don't know how I should have stood it when the Hereward fellow knelt down before him, and put his hands between his and swore to be his man. That's the way the book said it. I tell you that must have been tough--tough as hell!”