“Yes, uncle.”
“Humph! More than the pears are worth, Tom.”
“Do you think so, uncle?”
“Decidedly. But there, the thief deserves to be caught—and thrashed; but don’t be too hard upon him.”
Tom brightened up at this, and looked at the clock on the mantel-piece.
“Why, it’s stopped,” he said.
“Stopped? Nonsense,” said Uncle Richard, looking at his watch.
“But it must have stopped. I don’t think it has moved lately.”
“The clock is going all right, Tom, but not so fast as your desires. There, try a little patience; and don’t stop after ten. If the plunderer is not here by that time he will not come to-night—if he comes at all.”
“Very well, uncle,” said Tom, and after another glance at the clock, which still did not seem to move, he settled down with his head resting upon his fists, to study the giraffe, of which there was a large engraving, with its hide looking like a piece of the map of the moon, the spots being remarkably similar to the craters and ring-plains upon the moon’s surface, while the giraffe itself, with its long sprawling legs, would put him in mind of Pete Warboys. Then he read how it had been designed by nature for its peculiar life in the desert, and so that it could easily reach up and crop the leaves of trees from fifteen to twenty feet above the ground; but it did not, as he pictured it in his mind, seem to be picking leaves, but Marie Louise pears, while David was creeping up behind with his elastic hazel stick, and—