He placed himself between her and the door, and raised the yardstick over her head. The girl retreated step by step, Mr. Grabb advancing as she retreated, with the yardstick in his fat hand. "Give 'em up,--" he seized her arm, and attempted to tear the bundle from her grasp. "Give 'em up you ----" he applied an epithet which he had heard used by a manager of a theater to the unfortunate girls in his employment. At the word, the young woman retreated into a corner behind the counter, her face flushed and her eyes flashing with an almost savage light-- "You cowardly villain!" she said, "to insult me because I will not permit you to rob me. O, you despicable coward--for shame!" The look of her eye and curl of her lip by no means pleased the corpulent Grabb. He grew red with rage. When he spoke again it was in a loud voice and with an emphatic sweep of the yardstick. "If you don't give 'em up, I'll--I'll break every bone in your body. You hussy! You ----! What do you think of yourself--to attempt to rob a poor man of his property?" These words attracted the attention of the passers-by; and in a moment, the doorway was occupied by a throng of curious spectators. The poor girl, looking over Grabb's shoulders, saw that she was the object of the gaze of some dozen pairs of eyes. "Gentlemen, this hussy has attempted to rob me of my property! I gave her stuff sufficient to make five shirts, and she's spoilt 'em so I can't sell 'em for old rags, and--and she won't give 'em up." "If they ain't good for nothing, what d'ye want with 'em?" remarked the foremost of the spectators. But Grabb was determined to bring matters to a crisis. "Now, look here," he said, holding the yardstick in front of the girl, and thus imprisoning her in the corner; "if you don't give 'em up, I'll strip the clothes from your back." The girl turned scarlet in the face; her arms sank slowly to her side; the bundle fell from her hands; she burst into tears. "Shame! shame!" cried one of the spectators. "It's the way he does business," added a voice in the background. "He won't give out any work unless the girl, who applies for it, places some money in his hands as a pledge. When the work is brought into the store, he pretends that it's spoilt, and keeps the money. That's the way he raises capital!" "What's that you say?" cried Grabb, turning fiercely on the crowd, who had advanced some one or two paces into the store. "Who said that?" A man in a coarse, brown bang-up advanced from the crowd-- "I said it, and I'll stand to it! Ain't you a purty specimen of a bald-headed Christian, to try and cheat the poor girl out of her hard-airned money?" "I'll call the police," cried Grabb. "What a pattern! what a beauty!" continued the man in the brown bang-up; "why rotten eggs 'ud be wasted on such a carcass as that!" "Police! Police!" screamed Grabb,--"Gentlemen, I'd like to know if there is any law in this land?"