"If I have to go I want him to go, too."

At these words Mr. Wakefield Smith's face changed color.

"I can't go, officer; have an important engagement at the--er--club."

"He is a pickpocket and I'll prove it at the station house," said Jerry, warningly. "It is your duty to make him go along. I'll help you carry him if it's necessary."

"And you'll skip out, too, if you get the chance," remarked the policeman, grimly.

"If you think that, handcuff me to this fellow."

"Do you mean that?"

"I do, sir."

"Hang me if I don't think you are honest, after all."

"He's a big thief!" bawled Mr. Wakefield Smith.

"Keep quiet and come along. They can straighten matters out at the precinct."

The officer took Mr. Wakefield Smith by the arm and started to walk the prisoner away. With a dexterous twist the intoxicated man cleared himself and plunged down the street.

The bluecoat and Jerry made after him as quickly as they could, but a drawing school in the neighborhood had just let out, and they were detained by the crowd. Mr. Wakefield Smith stumbled across the street and down a side thoroughfare that was very dark. The officer and our hero went after him, but at the end of the second block he was no longer to be seen.

"Now you've let him escape," said Jerry to the policeman. "I have a good mind to report you."

"Go on with you!" howled the officer in return. "I reckon it was a put up job all around. Clear about your business or I'll run you in for disorderly conduct!"

And he made such a savage dash at the young oarsman with his long club that our hero was glad to retreat.

He continued the hunt for the pickpocket alone, but without avail, and, much disheartened, finally returned to his boarding-house. He was afraid he had seen the last of Mr. Wakefield Smith, and was glad he had gotten at least ten dollars from the pickpocket.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

NELLIE ARDELL'S TROUBLES.

On the following morning Jerry went to work at the bindery as if nothing had happened. When he went in, d.i.c.k Lanning glared at our hero and stopped as if to speak, but changed his mind and walked off without saying a word.

During the day the young oarsman became much better acquainted with his work and began to like it.

That night, on leaving the bindery by the side entrance, which opened on a narrow lane, our hero saw d.i.c.k Lanning and several of his friends waiting for him.

He attempted to pa.s.s but Lenning put out his foot, and had Jerry not stopped he would have been tripped up.

"Let me pa.s.s," said he, sharply, but instead of complying, Lenning took a stand in front of him and hit the youth on the shoulder.

"I said I'd git square," he hissed, savagely. "If yer ain't afraid, stand up and fight."

"I'm not afraid," replied Jerry, and pushed him up against the wall.

Without delay a rough-and-tumble fight ensued.

"Give it to him, d.i.c.k!"

"Do the hayseed up!"

"Knock him into the middle of next week!"

These and a dozen other cries arose on the air, and the crowd kept increasing until fully a hundred spectators surrounded the pair.

d.i.c.k Lanning had caught Jerry unfairly, but the youth soon managed to shake him off, and, hauling back, gave him a clean blow on the end of his unusually long nose, which caused the blood to spurt from that organ in a stream.

"He's tapped d.i.c.k's nose!"

"My! wasn't that a blow, though!"

"The country lad is game!"

Wild with rage, d.i.c.k Lanning endeavored to close in again. Jerry stopped the movement this time by a blow on the chest which sent him staggering back several feet into the crowd.

"What's the matter, d.i.c.k?"

"Don't let him use you like that."

"I'll fix him!" howled the bully, and rushed at our hero a third time.

Again he hit Jerry, this time in the chin. But our hero's blood was now up, and, calculating well, he struck a square blow in the left eye that knocked the bully flat.

"d.i.c.k is knocked out!"

"That country jay is a corker!"

"Git up, d.i.c.k. Yer eye is turnin' all black!"

"Better let him go, he's too much for you!"

d.i.c.k Lanning was slow in coming to the front. The eye was not only black, but it was closing rapidly.

"He's got a stone in his fist--he don't fight fair," he growled to his friends.

"I have nothing in my fist," retorted Jerry. "If he wants anymore, I fancy I can accommodate him, although I don't care to fight."

d.i.c.k Lanning was uneasy. He glanced toward his friends and pa.s.sed a signal to one of his cronies.