'Get up, you wiper,' said John Crumb. But the baronet thought it better to cling to the ground. 'You sholl get up,' said John, taking him by the collar of his coat and lifting him. 'Now, Ruby, he's a-going to have it,' said John. Whereupon Ruby screamed at the top of her voice, with a shriek very much louder than that which had at first attracted John Crumb's notice.
'Don't hit a man when he's down,' said the baronet, pleading as though for his life.
'I wunt,' said John;--'but I'll hit a fellow when un's up.' Sir Felix was little more than a child in the man's arms. John Crumb raised him, and catching him round the neck with his left arm,--getting his head into chancery as we used to say when we fought at school,--struck the poor wretch some half-dozen times violently in the face, not knowing or caring exactly where he hit him, but at every blow obliterating a feature. And he would have continued had not Ruby flown at him and rescued Sir Felix from his arms. 'He's about got enough of it,' said John Crumb as he gave over his work. Then Sir Felix fell again to the ground, moaning fearfully. 'I know'd he'd have to have it,' said John Crumb.
Ruby's screams of course brought the police, one arriving from each end of the passage on the scene of action at the same time. And now the cruellest thing of all was that Ruby in the complaints which she made to the policemen said not a word against Sir Felix, but was as bitter as she knew how to be in her denunciations of John Crumb. It was in vain that John endeavoured to make the man understand that the young woman had been crying out for protection when he had interfered. Ruby was very quick of speech and John Crumb was very slow. Ruby swore that nothing so horrible, so cruel, so bloodthirsty had ever been done before. Sir Felix himself when appealed to could say nothing. He could only moan and make futile efforts to wipe away the stream of blood from his face when the men stood him up leaning against the railings. And John, though he endeavoured to make the policemen comprehend the extent of the wickedness of the young baronet, would not say a word against Ruby. He was not even in the least angered by her denunciations of himself. As he himself said sometimes afterwards, he had 'dropped into the baronite' just in time, and, having been successful in this, felt no wrath against Ruby for having made such an operation necessary.