" Lend me your whip," cried Philip, to the driver of a tax-
cart at their side. The stranger was very glad to have the
chance of making a turnpike-keeper uncomfortable, so di-
rectly handed the whip to Philip, who climbed round to the
edge of the box, and commenced lashing the pikeman most
furiously, as though he wished to give him the full benefit of
the thrashing he had intended for the other adversary. The
man still kept hold of the horses, however: and Philip getting
more furious every minute, and heated with the liquor he
had been imbibing, disregarding the remonstrances of hit
companions and the shrieks of the women, jumped down
and struck the other with his fist.
Philip was an admirable boxer, but he had found his
match. For powerful men are commissioned on Derby days
to look after turnpikes, in the anticipation of troublesome
customers; and the present occupant being a professed bruiser,
he struck at Philip in an instant, driving his hard sledge-
hammer fist full in his face. His adversary tried to follow
up the attack, but he was overpowered, and in a few rounds
fell bleeding and almost senseless in the road.
• A regular row was beginning generally amongst the
crowd; and Mr. Wyndham Flitter, seeing a body of police in
the offing, got out of the landau to his friend's assistance;
not to fight, however, but to pick him up, and, with Mr.
Wrackett's assistance, to lift him into a cab, in which, lying
along the seat almost like a corpse, he was rapidly driven
off, the second payment of the gate having been made, as
usual, by Mr. Spooner, who was generally appealed to unfl*"
similar circumstances.
9(iX POTTLEIOH LBQACt. Slid



CHAPTER XXXIL

ANNIE GOES TO LADV FLOKEs'a.
