CHAPTER XXXI. The Great Insurrection Begins 279 CHAPTER XXXII. Bloodshed 287 CHAPTER XXXIII. The Battle of Tower Hill 292 CHAPTER XXXIV. London in Revolution 299 CHAPTER XXXV. The Great Fight in Fleet Street 303 CHAPTER XXXVI. Prince Dumpling 313 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Man in the Cellar 319 CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Mantle of Napoleon 325 CHAPTER XXXIX. "God Save the King!" 333 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. In the Opium Den _Frontispiece_ "There peered through a broken pane of glass ... the white and wicked face of the Dumpling." _To face p._ 126 "The Dumpling was making a desperate dash for liberty" " 190 "I fell back in incredulous horror" " 324 THE DUMPLING. PROLOGUE. It was an impudent thing to do! No matter how scorching the July sun, no matter how alluring the thought of paddling out to ascertain whether the richly wooded lake-side looked equally lovely from the water; no matter how cunningly old Satan had spread his snare of mischief "for idle hands to do," by guiding me to the very spot where the little boat lay moored at the water's edge; no matter with what sophistry these, and many other excuses which I pleaded to a pricking conscience, seemed to mitigate the offence, the fact remains that I acted in a way which was as impudent as it was unpardonable. The owner of the property generously allowed the public to use a particular footpath through the park. Hence my offence in straying from the permitted footpath and in exploring unpermitted copses and woodlands, until I came to this beautiful sheet of water, was for that very reason all the more graceless and heinous. But in July, when the holiday spirit is in one's blood, and when all the world is holiday-making with us, the conventionalities exist only to be set aside. Chaste matrons who, in chill December, would consider that to exhibit more than two inches of stocking above the ankle would be to pass the high-water mark of propriety, and even, to save a new skirt from being muddied, would hesitate to hitch that garment higher by another inch, will, in demoralising July, discard these same stockings altogether, and disport and display themselves, knee-bare, with never a blush, upon the beach at Margate or at Brighton.