His eyes caught the woman’s.

“That’s right, dearie,” she chimed in hurriedly, laying a soft detaining hand on the boy’s forearm.  “Be a good fellow.  Stake me to just one more pint—­”

“No,” the boy insisted, shaking free—­“I’m going home.  Le’ me alone.”

“Nella,” P. Sybarite interpolated in an imperative tone, momentarily distracting November’s attention—­“Nella says to tell you she wants you—­now—­immediately.  Do you get that?”

“Damn Nella!” snapped the gang leader.  “Tell her to go to the devil.  And you”—­he menaced P. Sybarite with a formidable look—­“you slide outa here—­in a hurry!  See?”

With this, rising in his place, he put forth a hand to detain the boy, who was sullenly pushing past the woman.

“Wait!” he insisted.  “You can’t go before you pay up—­”

Whipping from his pocket a note (of what denomination he never knew—­but it was large) P. Sybarite slapped it down upon the table.

“That’ll pay whatever he owes,” he announced, and to the boy:  “Clear out—­quick—­do you hear!—­while you’ve got a chance—­”

“What t’ell business is it of yours?” November demanded, turning upon him furiously.

With an enigmatic smile, P. Sybarite dexterously tipped up his side of the table and, overturning it, caught the gangster unprepared for any such manoeuvre and pinned him squirming in the angle of wall and floor.

Immediately the woman came to her feet shrieking; while the little man seized the befuddled boy and swung him toward the door actually before he realised what was happening.

Simultaneously, November’s henchmen at the adjoining table leapt into the brawl with an alacrity that sent their chairs clattering back upon the floor.

But in his magnificent assurance P. Sybarite had foreseen and planned cunningly against precisely that same contingency.  No sooner had he sent the boy staggering on his way than he whirled completely round with a ready guard—­and in no more than the very wink of exigence.

Already one of the creatures was almost on his back—­the other hanging off and singularly employed (it seemed, considering) with his hands; just what he was up to P. Sybarite had time neither to see nor to surmise.

Sidestepping a wild swing, he planted a left full on the nose of the nearer assailant and knocked him backwards over a sprawling chair.  Then turning attention to the other, he was barely in time to duck an uppercut—­and out of the corners of his eyes caught the glint of brass-knuckles on the fist that failed to land.

Infuriated, he closed in, sent a staggering left to the thug’s heart and a murderous right to his chin, so that he reeled and fell as if shot—­while P. Sybarite with a bound again caught the boy by the arm and whirled him out through the doorway into the hall.

“Hurry!” he panted.  “We’ve one chance in ten thousand—­”

Beyond doubt they had barely that.