“We’ve caught him!” exclaimed his Majesty, complacently wriggling his toes about.
“But what’s he been doing,” I asked.
“we’ve caught him!”
“Av ye plaze, sor,” groaned the man, panting beneath the Wallypug’s weight, “I have been doing nothing at all, at all. I waz just a-finishin’ me warrak of swapin’ the chimneys, wen one ov the ould gintleman came up an’ poked me in the nose with a sthick, and the other ould gintleman knocked me over and sthole me bag, while the soger hild me down till the other gintleman sat on me—it’s among a lot of murtherin’ thaves I’ve got entoirely, savin’ yer presince, sor.”
“The man is a burglar,” declared the Doctor-in-Law emphatically. “I happened to hear a very suspicious noise down here, and calling to the others, rushed down just in time to catch this man making off with a bag of things. I think he was trying to escape up the chimney, for his head was half-way up when we entered, and this bag, which evidently contains plunder of some kind, is covered with soot too.”
“Why, the man is a sweep, and was sweeping the chimney,” I cried, pointing to his brushes and sticks; and after a lot of explanations the man was told to get up and his Majesty, followed by the others, retired to his bedroom, evidently greatly disappointed that it was not a real burglar that they had been combating.
The sweep, who was a very good-natured Irishman, took it in very good part, and the present of half-a-crown sent him away quite reconciled to his assailants.
The Rhymester afterwards made a great boast that he had not taken any part in the mélée.
“Of course I knew all along that he wasn’t a burglar,” he declared, “and that’s the reason why I wouldn’t interfere.”