"It's sorry I am to hear that," I replied, quite truthfully, "and you, Jem, how did you come off?" "Well, I gave a better account of myself than Paddy here, for I made most of them keep their distance from me; but him they got on the turf before you could say Watch me eye, and the whole boiling of them was on top of him in the twinkling of the same." "The whole boiling of them?" said I, as if I knew nothing of the occurrence, "then there was more than Strammers to receive you?" "More!" shouted Jem Bottles, "there was forty if there was one." Paddy groaned again at the remembrance, and moaned out: "The whole population of London was there, and half of it on top of me before I could wink. I thought they would strip the clothes off me, and they nearly did it." "And have you been here alone ever since? Have you had nothing to eat or drink since you got back?" "Oh," said Jem, "we had too much attention in the morning, and too little as the day went on. We were expecting you home, and so took the liberty of coming up here and waiting for you, thinking you might be good enough to send out for some one who would dress our wounds; but luckily that's not needed now." "Why is it not needed?" I asked. "I'll send at once. "Oh, no," moaned Paddy, "there was one good friend that did not forget us." "Well," said Jem, "he seemed mighty afeerd of coming in. I suppose he thought it was on his advice that we went where we did, and he was afeerd we thought badly of him for it; but of course we had no blame to put on the poor little man." "In Heaven's name, who are you talking of?" said I. "Doctor Chord," answered Jem. "He put his head inside the door and inquired for us, and inquired specially where you were; but that, of course, we couldn't tell him. He was very much put out to find us mis-handled, and he sent us some tankards of beer, which are now empty, and we're waiting for him because he promised to come back and attend to our injuries." "Then you didn't see Doctor Chord in the gardens?" "In what gardens?" asked Bottles. "You didn't see him among that mob that set on you?" "No fear," said Jem, "wherever there is a scrimmage Doctor Chord will keep away from it." "Indeed and in that you're wrong," said I. "Doctor Chord has been the instigator of everything that has happened, and he stood in the background and helped to set them on." Paddy sat up with wild alarm in his eyes. "Sure, master," says he, "how could you see through so thick a wall as that?" "I did not see through the wall at all; I was in the house. When you went through the back door, I went through the front gate, and what I am telling you is true. Doctor Chord is the cause of the whole commotion. That's why he was afraid to come in the room. He thought perhaps you had seen him, and, finding you had not, he'll be back here again when everything is over. Doctor Chord is a traitor, and you may take my word for that."