it more easy for the magistrate, when he came to
deal with the case of these two women, to dismiss
them with only a caution, yet no one could reasonably
suppose that it was this which led to the riot.

For a few minutes things had looked very ugly. A
good deal of damage was done, for instance, to the
boot factory, which was still being managed (and
very well managed too) by a naturalised German and
his son. Then the rioters had turned their attention
to the Witanbury Stores. "The Kaiser," as Alfred
Head was still called by his less kindly neighbours,
had always been disliked in the poorer quarters of the
town, and that long before the War. Now was the
time for paying off old scores. So the plate-glass
windows were shivered with a will, as well as with
pickaxes; and all the goods, mostly consisting of
bacon, butter, and cheese, which had dressed those
windows, had been taken out, thrown among the
rioters, and borne off in triumph. It was fortunate
that no damage had been done there to life or limb.

Alfred Head had fled at once to the highest room in
the building. There he had stayed, locked in, cowering
and shivering, till the police, strongly reinforced
by soldiers, had driven the rioters off.

Polly at first had stood her ground. "Cowards!
Cowards!" she had cried, bravely rushing into the
shop; and it was no thanks to the rioters that she had
not been very roughly handled indeed. Luckily the
police just then had got in by the back of the building,
and had dragged her away.

Even into the quiet Close there had penetrated
certain ominous sounds indicative of what was going

[[289]]

p288 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p289w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p290

v?