‘Horful indeed, miss, I believe yer,’ the burglar rejoined, with deep feeling. ‘You don’t know her temper when she’s roused. An’ I’m sure I ‘ope you never may, neither. And I’d ‘ad all my oranges off of ‘em. So it came back to me what was wrote on the ongverlope, and I says to myself, “Why not, seein’ as I’ve been done myself, and if they keeps two slaveys there must be some pickings?” An’ so ‘ere I am. But them cats, they’ve brought me back to the ways of honestness. Never no more.’
‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘these cats are very valuable—very indeed. And we will give them all to you, if only you will take them away.’
‘I see they’re a breedy lot,’ replied the burglar. ‘But I don’t want no bother with the coppers. Did you come by them honest now? Straight?’
‘They are all our very own,’ said Anthea, ‘we wanted them, but the confidement—’
‘Consignment,’ whispered Cyril, ‘was larger than we wanted, and they’re an awful bother. If you got your barrow, and some sacks or baskets, your brother’s missus would be awfully pleased. My father says Persian cats are worth pounds and pounds each.’
‘Well,’ said the burglar—and he was certainly moved by her remarks—‘I see you’re in a hole—and I don’t mind lending a helping ‘and. I don’t ask ‘ow you come by them. But I’ve got a pal—‘e’s a mark on cats. I’ll fetch him along, and if he thinks they’d fetch anything above their skins I don’t mind doin’ you a kindness.’
‘You won’t go away and never come back,’ said Jane, ‘because I don’t think I COULD bear that.’
The burglar, quite touched by her emotion, swore sentimentally that, alive or dead, he would come back.
Then he went, and Cyril and Robert sent the girls to bed and sat up to wait for his return. It soon seemed absurd to await him in a state of wakefulness, but his stealthy tap on the window awoke them readily enough. For he did return, with the pal and the barrow and the sacks. The pal approved of the cats, now dormant in Persian repletion, and they were bundled into the sacks, and taken away on the barrow—mewing, indeed, but with mews too sleepy to attract public attention.
‘I’m a fence—that’s what I am,’ said the burglar gloomily. ‘I never thought I’d come down to this, and all acause er my kind ‘eart.’