"Is this your gratitude for the favour we have just conferred upon you?
Command us, forsooth! You had better repeat the order, and see how it will be obeyed." "I _do_ repeat it," rejoined the grocer, firmly.

"In the Lord Mayor's name, I command you to desist, and return to your homes." The man would have struck him with his staff, if he had not been himself felled to the ground by Leonard.

This was the signal for greater outrage.

The grocer and his apprentice were instantly assailed by several others of the mob, who, leaving them both on the floor covered with bruises, helped themselves to all they could lay hands on in the shop, and then quitted the premises.
It is scarcely necessary to track their course further; and it may be sufficient to state, that they broke open upwards of fifty houses in different streets.

Many of the plague-stricken joined them, and several half-naked creatures were found dead in the streets on the following morning.