"What has happened?" he demanded. "Is anybody hurt?" The man answered: "My horses were startled by the storm. I jumped out and was endeavoring to extricate my niece when this wretched boy got in the way." "Uncle," protested the girl, "you closed the door on me, and the boy----" "Shut up!" he growled, curtly. "Go inside the house!" But his niece shared with him at least one characteristic. She possessed the family temper. "I will not go away and let you say things which are untrue. Listen to me, Mr. Policeman. Lord Vanstone did close the door because he thought the carriage would turn over on top of him. For some reason the accident did not happen immediately, and the boy ran round to the other side and helped me out just in time." "Confound the brat! I think he was the real cause of the whole affair. Why was he hiding in my doorway?" Lord Vanstone was more enraged than ever by the girl's obstinate defense of her rescuer and her insistence on his own seeming cowardice. "I was not hiding. I only took shelter from the storm. I tried to help you because the footman was struggling with the horses. I do not claim any credit for simply opening a door and helping the young lady to alight, but I lost both my dinner and my papers in doing so." Everyone experienced a shock of surprise at hearing the boy's elegant diction. The policeman was puzzled. He instantly understood the facts, but dared not browbeat an earl. "You do not bring any charge against him, my lord?" he said. But his lordship deigned no reply. He told the coachman to arrange for the removal of the carriage, grasped his niece by the arm and led her, still protesting, into the house. The policeman saw the bundle of papers scattered over the roadway, and, near them, the partly-eaten bun. After a wrench at his garments he produced a penny. "Here," he said to the boy. "Buy another bun and be off. It's a good job for you the young lady spoke up the way she did." "She merely told the truth. That man was a liar." Refusing the proffered penny, the boy turned on his heel. The policeman looked after him. "That's a queer kid," he thought. "Talked like a regular young gent. I wonder why he is selling papers. Poor lad! He lost a bob's worth at least, and small thanks he got for it." Passing out of the square by the first eastward street, Philip Anson, with his head erect and hands clinched in his pockets, strode onward at a rapid pace. The lightning was less frequent now, and the thunder was dying away in sullen rumblings. He was wet and hungry. Yet, although he had three halfpence, the remaining balance of the only sales effected that evening, he passed many shops where he could have bought food.