Julien returned with Madame d'Estrelle to the cab. He put her in and ordered the driver to start. The driver refused. Julien jumped up beside him and seized the reins, swearing that he would throw him into the gutter if he resisted. The young man's manly bearing and determined air awed the cab-driver, who submitted; but he had not driven a hundred yards when he stopped, yelling thief and murder. A party of men had just come out of a house, and the poor devil hoped to find some aid against the violence he was undergoing.
As luck would have it these men were young dandies fresh from a sumptuous supper, and a little the worse for wine. The adventure presented itself at that moment of excitement when one gladly constitutes himself a redresser of wrongs, especially when the odds are four to on
