brute that he was. If her man had been sober he’d have given him what for, takin’ advantage of a man wot ‘ad a drop too much. Braunt went down stairs and picked up the “pore” man, who had certainly had one drop too much, carried him up, and laid him in his room with his wife. “You’ve killed the pore man, as never did no ’arm to you,” screamed the wife. “No such luck,” said Braunt; “he’s too drunk to hurt.” Which was, indeed, the case. Joe drew the door shut behind him, and left them to fight it out if they wanted to. Mrs. Scimmins had much sympathy from the court when she related the incident. The women were more indignant than the men. It was a fine state of things if a great, hulking, sulky brute like Braunt was to interfere in little matrimonial discussions that happen in all well-regulated families. Much as they disliked the police, it seemed that now, if ever, their aid should be invoked. “If he’d tried to break every bone in _my_ man’s body, Mrs. Scimmins,” said one bulky woman, “I’d ’a ’ad ’im by the ’air.” “I donno ‘bout that, Sarah,” said Mrs. Scimmins, who did not wish to rest under the imputation of not doing all she could, under the circumstances, for her husband in his comparatively helpless state. “Wot with bein’ ’it in the ’ead, an’ the face, an’ the back, an’ then my ’ead strikin’ the door; an’ one eye as I couldn’t see out o’, an’ yer ’usban’ a-tramplin’ of yer, yer wouldn’t ’ave breath enough to ’ave anybody by the ’air.” Mrs. Scimmins pressed tenderly the bruised and still swollen portion of her face under the eye, and felt that she had made out her case; in fact, her defence was accepted as a strong plea that only made Braunt’s inhuman and uncalled for conduct stand out the darker by comparison. The men were astonished, of course, but not so emphatic in their denunciation of Braunt as the wives had been. Scimmins bore no particular malice against his assailant, although what he had thrown him over the stairs for, he expressed himself as unable to conceive. In answer to sympathetic inquiries from his pals at the public bar of the “Rose and Crown,” he informed them that, although shaky, he was still in the ring. “Gawd ’elp us!” he went on, more in sorrow than in anger, “wot’s this world a-comin’ to? If you arsts me I gives it up. Wot with Braunt an’ the police both on a chap’s shoulders, if he raises ’is ’and to ’is own wife, the court’s no fit place for a pore ’ard-workin’ man to live in.” But nobody ventured to remonstrate with the York-shireman, least of all Scimmins, although the court as a community held more aloof from him than ever. “Are you coming to the meeting to-night, Mr. Braunt?” asked young Marsten, when he had greeted father and daughter. “Not me.” “Why not?” “Why go?”