“How many men would it take to make a good search?” said the sergeant.
“Hundred,” said his subordinate, gruffly, “would be nowhere. You’d want a man at every door, and at every attic window; and when you tried to stop ’em, they’d slip out somewhere else.”
The sergeant stood for a moment thinking, and then he made a step towards the sacks, looking curiously at the dog-fancier.
“Shouldn’t wonder if there was a tale hanging to every one of those dogs,” he said, grimly. “But what’s in these sacks?”
“Now look ye here—look ye here!” exclaimed D. Wragg, assuming not to have heard the last remark; “don’t you make no mistake. You’ve searched all from top to bottom now, gents, so let’s have an end of all this game.”
“Stand aside, will you,” cried the sergeant, roughly; and forcing D. Wragg back, he strode up to the sacks, threw them down one after the other, and felt through them.
“Pooh! corks!” he exclaimed, contemptuously, after a few moments’ examination. “Don’t know what you want with corks up here though, master. What’s in the basket? Tied down, eh?”
“Now look here, don’t you make no mistake—don’t now—I purtest agen it all.”
With a fierce rush, D. Wragg threw himself upon the great basket, clinging frantically thereto, and struggling viciously, and kicking with his club boot at the men who tried to drag him away.
A sharp scuffle ensued, for the dealer clung tightly to the great flat hamper, and it was not till after quite a battle that D. Wragg was dragged from his hold, to stand panting, hot, and glaring of eye, gazing from one to the other.