“Oh, that?” with a dégagé air. “When you were coming up the road?—er—. Was that what I heard? I was in here to—er—to get a bite of supper—see, there are the plates on the table—when—hist!—I heard something—something suspicious. I listened.” He paused dramatically. Marks nodded, all agog. “Er—it was a noise!” He felt his inventive powers weakening. Marks nodded again, wisely.
“’Earin’ a noise is wot makes hany man suspicious.”
“Er—I thought it might be a tramp. So I climbed on the railing—er—to see better. I thought I saw a man—a tramp—climbing up the bank. So—of course—I jumped on him!” His manner declared that to leap from a high rail down upon the heads of tramps, was a tenet he had held from childhood.
“W’en you saw hit were a horfcer of the law—w’y didn’t you ’alt w’en Hi said ’alt?”
“Oh—that?” casually; he considered: “Well, you see, I was so frightened when I saw that I had apparently attacked a constable—I lost my head and....”
“You nearly lost me my ’ead—a-jumpin’ on it like a fancy ’igh diver on a rollin’ wave.” He accosted Rosamond, formally, pointing his pencil at her. “And your nyme’s ‘Mearely,’ you say, ma’am? Hi’d oughter know but Hi hain’t been on the county force more’n three years an’ it takes me a whiles to get hacquainted. My motto, as Hi says hit to myself a ’undred times a day, is ‘Slow and careful, Halfred.’ ‘Mrs. Mearely,’ you said?”
“Yes, Mrs. Mearely. Hawthorne Road.”
He bit his pencil carefully and indited.
“Hi knows the road hall right—an’ hafter this Hi’ll stick to it—if hall the King’s ’orses an’ hall the King’s men is a-standin’ on the porch railin’. Let ’em stand there, Hi say. And see ’ow they like it! Good-night, ma’am.” He put away his note book and pencil and started slowly toward the door. The vagabond waved him a pleasant farewell.
“There’ll be no complaint from me. Good-night sergeant.”