VI.
It was a thief again who was on the stage; but not a thief like that other, who, for all the reality there was in the spectacle, might have gone behind the scenes and washed the chalk off his white face. This thief was of the kind whose fortunes the old naturalistic novelists were fond of following in fictions of autobiographic form, and who sometimes actually wrote their own histories; a conventional thief, of those dear to De Foe and the Spanish picaresque romancers, with a flavor of good literature about him. Nothing could have been more classic in incident than the story of the plaintiff, an honest-looking young fellow, who testified that he had met the prisoner on the street, and, learning that he was out of work and out of money, had taken him home to his room and shared his bed with him. I do not know in just what calling this primitive and trustful hospitality is practiced; the plaintiff looked and was dressed like a workingman. His strange bedfellow proved an early riser; he stole away without disturbing his host, and carried with him all the money that was in his host’s pockets. By an odd turn of luck the two encountered shortly after breakfast, and the prisoner ran. The plaintiff followed, but the other eluded him, and was again sauntering about in safety, when the eye of a third actor in the drama fell upon him. This was a young man who kept some sort of small shop, and who was called to the witness-stand in behalf of the prosecution. He was as stupid as he could well be in some respects, and very simple questions had to be repeated several times to him. Yet he had the ferret-like instinct of the thief-catcher, and he instantly saw that his look fluttered the guilty rogue, who straightway turned and fled. But this time he had a sharper pursuer than his host, and he was coursed through all his turns and windings, up stairs and down, in houses and out, and gripped at last.
“As soon as I saw him start to run,” said the witness, who told his story with a graphic jauntiness, “I knowed he’d got something.”
“You didn’t know I’d got anything!” exclaimed the thief.
“I knowed you’d get ninety days if I caught up with you,” retorted the witness, wagging his head triumphantly.
As the officer entered the station-house with his prisoner, the host, by another odd chance, was coming out, after stating his loss to the police, and identified his truant guest.
The money, all but thirty cents, was found upon him; and though he represented that he had lawfully earned it by haying in Dedham, the fact that it was in notes of the denominations which the plaintiff remembered was counted against him, and he got the ninety days which his captor had prophesied. He, too, sat down, and I saw him no more.