They were about to cross the street, when they saw the crowd.

Two young men lied down in a corner. They were hugging each other very dearly. Just now Harry noticed the knife in one of the men’s hands. It was a huge knife that kept the crowd away.

Harry didn’t know why he did it, but he left Rhea to come closer. Then he bent over to them and asked what was the matter. They both were bleeding like hell; each had a big slash on their forehead, where they had tried to pick out their eyes.

Harry noticed that both were olive brown with dark eyes that were filled with agony.

“He’s selling drugs!” the smaller guy shouted out with a foreign accent. The other responded in a foreign language, but he let his knife drop down.

“Gimme the knife, man, it could hurt you and your buddy,” Harry said in the most conciliatory tone he could manage, though his voice trembled.

To his own surprise, the guy handed the knife over and Harry didn’t know what to do with it. Then he threw it away to a safe distance.

The big one let his victim go, who was still shouting about the drugs. Harry tapped the big guy at the shoulder and said that everything was all right. The small guy started to crawl away safely.

“Where the hell are the police?” said the little voice in Harry’s head.

“We can handle this in a friendly way,” said Harry and smiled weakly. His heart was hammering; he didn’t know what to do next. He couldn’t keep them apart forever. The small one could make his move while he was chatting along.

But then, to his enormous relief they came bursting in, three tough policemen, who took over. Harry turned away and walked with a silly grin to Rhea. They crossed to the street.

Rhea looked at him with big, sparkling eyes. “You’re my hero,” she whispered.

He still had this little grin on his face, but it didn’t express how he really felt. He felt like he badly needed a drink.

She asked him how he had disarmed them. He could have told her the truth, but instead he answered casually that he had used an old jujutsu trick. He had followed some courses long ago.

“You’re my super hero,” she said. “Let’s go home now.” That was better then a drink.

And while they were walking home, he suddenly knew what had happened: it was not his impressive authority that had these guys surrendered. It was simply the fact that they needed a third party to split them up and he came just in time. Without the impure they would have gone on fighting because they had to defend their honor, their manhood, their reputation, whatever the reason.

And Harry realized that a lot of wars could be prevented when a third party came at the right time to separate the bantams before things would escalate.