“Hello! hello!” thought Fandor, “so here’s my workgirl in very odd company!—oh! dear, oh! dear.” Next moment the young fellow darted forward at a run. From the shadow two men had just sprung out on the women; seizing them roughly by the arms, they were hustling and dragging them away. The street-walker put her head down, fighting hard, but without uttering a sound; the workwoman gave a piercing shriek for help. To fly to the rescue, to save the woman in this perilous strait, Jérôme Fandor’s mind was made up in an instant. Someone else came hurrying up behind him at the same moment. A voice shouted: “Have at ’em, mate!” “A gallant working man,” thought Fandor, as he caught a glimpse of a young man running across the road dressed in a blue jacket, the sort plumbers wear; “there’s still honest folk left who won’t let women be molested.” But the time for action was come; he was level by now with the two women, who were still struggling, and cried in a peremptory voice to the assailants: “Let the women go!—or I strike.” At this the two bullies, finding it was their turn to be attacked, suddenly loosed hold of their victims and wheeling round to face Fandor and his companion, stood on the defensive. In an instant Jérôme Fandor realized the state of affairs; one of the fellows was putting a hand in his pocket—his purpose was manifest. “By God!” yelled the young man, “none of your tricks here!—or you’ll make me angry.” Fandor was wrestling savagely, locked in a close embrace with the fellow who had first laid hands on the workgirl; behind him he could hear the laboured breath and fierce cries and oaths of the working man who had hurried to the rescue, and knew that the same battle was raging between him and the second ruffian. A few seconds, and all was over. At the very moment Fandor, with a masterly trip, stretched his adversary on the ground, where he held him down by main force, he heard the workman give an exultant shout of victory: “Ah, ha! I’ve got you, you hound!” Jérôme Fandor looked round. “Bravo, mate!” he cried, “so you’ve downed your man, too?” A thick, hoarse, common, ignoble voice replied: “Downed him, have I ... yes, by gosh! and what’s more I’m busy fixing the bloke up workmanlike, I am!” “_Workmanlike_, eh?”—and Fandor looked, and could scarcely believe his eyes. In the calmest way possible, but with surprising dexterity, the man he had taken for a working man had whipped a coil of rope from his pocket and tied up the victim of his prowess. “And now for your man!” he cried, pointing to the wretch Fandor held captive under his knee, and who had now ceased to offer the slightest resistance. “Must truss him up, too—but I think we’d best not do ’em in ...” “Well and good!” thought Fandor, “why, by Gad! this beats cock-fighting; it’s just the finest scoop I’ve ever been in!”