“That’s too old to be ours,” reflected the daring Wort. “Let me turn it over and see if there is a mark on the bottom. Bah, an old worm! That is not our dipper.”
“Here, you thief! what are you meddlin’ with that property for?” roared a voice.
It was Old Tim. His face was red as a boiled lobster, and as he crooked his bare arms and rested them on his hips, they looked like the claws of a mammoth lobster ready to crawl out and seize any offender.
“Guess I’ll go,” thought Wort, and off he hurried to tell the club his ill-success, and that their detective in search of a thief had been called one.
A few minutes later Juggie exclaimed to the disconsolate circle, “Dar’s de organ-grinder.”
It was indeed he hurrying along the lane and turning a troubled face toward the barn, for no monkey came with him. Had he lost his friend from the far South?
“He gone!” said the grinder, as he reached the boys. “You sheen him?”
“Seen your monkey?” asked Sid.
“Yes, yes! You sheen my leetle mun-kee?”
“Why, no.”