That afternoon four of the Find-Outers sat in the little sweet-shop, on the opposite side of the road to the bench where the old man so often sat. Fatty was not with them. He was leaning against a tree not far off, apparently deep in a paper, his bicycle beside him. He was watching for the old man to come. How he hoped he would!
The bicycles belonging to the others were piled against the side of the sweet-shop. The four children in the shop were eating ices, and watching the bench opposite as keenly as Fatty was.
Some one came shuffling round the corner. Hurrah! It was the old man, complete with sniffle and pipe and cough. He sat himself down gingerly on the bench with a little groan, just exactly as Fatty used to do.
Then he bent himself over his stick-handle and seemed to go to sleep. The children waited, whilst their ices melted in the saucers. Had Johnny got a message to deliver from Number Five to Number Three?
A noise made them jump violently. It was the sound of a hooter! Fatty jumped too. He lifted his head cautiously from his paper, and saw a man riding down the High Street on a bicycle.. It had a hooter instead of a bell.
The man rode to the bench, hooted, and got off his bicycle. He stood his machine against the kerb and went to sit down on the bench close to the old man.
The old fellow did not even look up. How would he know if it was Number Three or not then? He was deaf and would not hear a whisper. Fatty puzzled his brains to think.
"Of course!" he thought suddenly. "That loud hooter always tells the old man when Number Three is coming to sit on the bench beside him. Of course! Gosh, that's clever."
The old man took absolutely no notice of the other man. Fatty watched very carefully, but he could not see any movement of the old man's mouth, nor could he see the giving of any paper-message.
For a few moments the two men sat together, and then old Johnny sat up a little straighter, and began to draw patterns in the dust with the end of his stick. Fatty watched more carefully to see if the old man was talking, under cover of his movements. But he could not make out that he was—unless he could talk without moving his lips, as a ventriloquist can!