'Mercy, mercy!' cried I, 'What, will no one help me?' 'I will if I can!' exclaimed Higginson, with his head thrust out of the bag, like a snail; and down he slided from his seat, and began rolling, and tumbling, and struggling on the floor, till he got upon his feet; and then he came jumping towards me, now falling now rising, while his face and bald forehead were all over meal, his eyes blaring, and his mouth wide open. The company, wherever he moved, kept in a circle round him, and clapped their hands and shouted. As I stood, with Betterton still holding me fast, he was suddenly flung from me by some one, and my hand seized. I turned, and beheld--Stuart. 'Oh! bless you, bless you!' cried I, catching his arm, 'for you have come to save me from destruction!' He pressed my hand, and pointing to Betterton and Grundy, who stood thunderstruck, cried, 'There are your men!' A large posse of constables immediately rushed forward, and arrested them. 'Heydey! what is all this?' cried Betterton. ''Tis for the beating you gave us when we were doing our duty,' said a man, and I recognised in the speaker one of the police-men who had arrested me about the barouche. 'This is government all over,' cried Betterton. 'This is the minister. This is the law!' 'And let me tell you, Sir,' said Stuart, 'that nothing but my respect for the law deters me at this moment from chastising you as you deserve.' 'What do you mean, sirrah?' cried Betterton. 'That you are a ruffian,' said Stuart, 'and the same cowardice which made you offer insult to a woman will make you bear it from a man. Now, Sir, I leave you to your fate.' And we were quitting the room. 'What thing is that?' said Stuart, stopping short before the poet; who, with one arm and his face out of the bag, lay on his back, gasping and unable to stir. 'Cut it, cut it!' cried the poor man, in choaking accents. 'Higginson I protest!' exclaimed Stuart, as he snatched a knife from the table, and laid open the bag. Up rose the poet, resurrectionary from his hempen coffin, and was beginning to clench his fist; but Stuart caught his arm, and hurried him and me out of the room. Stuart, with great eagerness, now began asking me the particulars of all that had occurred at Betterton's; and his rage, as I related it, was extreme.