The officer obeyed and out rolled a small box of velvet which the man picked up doubtfully, and all were looking at the box as the policeman handed it over to the leader.
“What’s this?” he asked of Tom Cooper.
The young sailor was looking at the box in mystified silence.
“I do not know,” said he at last, and there was one in the room who knew that he did not know, for Jim Farren had seen and heard what passed between George Benson and the Jew, and knew that this young man was a victim of their conspiracy, but for his own sake he dared not speak, for there would be a chance for him if he stood in with the old Jew, but he knew that there would be nothing done if he should try to aid the young sailor.
A few words would not be amiss about this young man Jim Farren. Brought up in one of the toughest parts of New York, he had had no influence to aid him into a better life. He would steal and then lie out of it, but this time he had been caught in his own trap. What a fool he had been to go to that shop after pawning a watch which of course would be identified.
He was thus thinking when he heard the sailor say stoutly:
“Well, whether you believe me or not, I did not steal those gems,” and for the first time in his life Jim Farren had an impulse to say, “He did not, for I saw the thief.”
The next day the papers were full of the robbery and the skilful catching of the thief. George Benson went and shook hands with the pawnbroker, and said: “If we had not worked this fellow off of our hands we would have been in a pickle just now.”