“Where’s all the crowd, Tom?” he asked the barman.

“Scared of you, I reckon,” was the brief reply.  “There was plenty here a few minutes ago.”

“Scared of me, eh?” the other repeated, staring hard at Sir Timothy.  “Did you ’ear that, guvnor?”

“I heard it,” Sir Timothy acquiesced.

Billy the Tanner began to cheer up.  He walked all round this stranger.

“A toff!  A big toff!  I’ll ’ave a drink with you, guvnor,” he declared, with a note of incipient truculence in his tone.

The barman had already reached up for two glasses but Sir Timothy shook his head.

“I think not,” he said.

There was a moment’s silence.  The barman made despairing signs at Sir Timothy.  Billy the Tanner was moistening his lips with his tongue.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because I don’t know you and I don’t like you,” was the bland reply.

Billy the Tanner wasted small time upon preliminaries.  He spat upon his hands.

“I dunno you and I don’t like you,” he retorted.  “D’yer know wot I’m going to do?”

“I have no idea,” Sir Timothy confessed.

“I’m going to make you look so that your own mother wouldn’t know you—­then I’m going to pitch you into the street,” he added, with an evil grin.  “That’s wot we does with big toffs who come ’anging around ’ere.”

“Do you?” Sir Timothy said calmly.  “Perhaps my friend may have something to say about that.”

The man of war was beginning to be worked up.

“Where’s your big friend?” he shouted.  “Come on!  I’ll take on the two of you.”

The man who had met Sir Timothy in the street had risen to his feet.  He strolled up to the two.  Billy the Tanner eyed him hungrily.

“The two of you, d’yer ’ear?” he shouted.  “And ’ere’s just a flick for the toff to be going on with!”

He delivered a sudden blow at Sir Timothy—­a full, vicious, jabbing blow which had laid many a man of the neighbourhood in the gutter.  To his amazement, the chin at which he had aimed seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.  Sir Timothy himself was standing about half-a-yard further away.  Billy the Tanner was too used to the game to be off his balance, but he received at that moment the surprise of his life.  With the flat of his hand full open, Sir Timothy struck him across the cheek such a blow that it resounded through the place, a blow that brought both the inner doors ajar, that brought peering eyes from every direction.  There was a moment’s silence.  The man’s fists were clenched now, there was murder in his face.  Sir Timothy stepped on one side.

“I am not a fighter,” he said coolly, leaning back against the marble table.  “My friend will deal with you.”

Billy the Tanner glared at the newcomer, who had glided in between him and Sir Timothy.

“You can come and join in, too,” he shouted to Sir Timothy.  “I’ll knock your big head into pulp when I’ve done with this little job!”