"Of course it is," replied the man in gray, "or I wouldn't be in it. I am too old a dog to bark up the wrong tree."
"It's all right, sonny," said the policeman, soothingly. "Go along quiet and peaceable and you won't get into trouble with Bab. He'll take good care of you."
"But who is he, and by what authority does he commit this outrage?" demanded Roy, who was so angry and astonished that he hardly knew what he was saying.
But his indignant words met with no verbal response. The policeman, who, according to Roy's way of thinking, ought to have helped him, lent effective assistance to his assailant by taking the boy by the other arm and gently pushing him into the carriage. The minute the two men released their hold of him, Roy jumped for the other side of the vehicle, intending to open the door and take to his heels, but the man who carried the heavy cane was there before him.
"What's the use of cutting up like this?" said he, with a cunning smile that exasperated the prisoner to the highest degree. "One would think, from your actions, that you were going to prison, instead of to the pleasantest home that any boy of your size ever had. Why can't you stay there and be contented? There's many a youngster in this city who would be glad to be in your boots."
As the man said this he mounted to a seat on the box beside the driver, and at the same moment his companion, who had got into the carriage and closed the door behind him, seized Roy by the arm and drew him away from the window.
"Sit down and take it easy," said he, pleasantly. "The game is up, as I told you, and you might as well give in and wait until you see another chance to run away."
"Run away!" repeated Roy. "Where from?"
"Oh, come now. What's the use of playing off in that way? I know it's quite a while since I saw you, but I knew you the minute I put eyes on you. That chap didn't fool you, did he?"
"What chap?"