“Well, Tom agreed to go, and presently I saw a shadow under the window, and lowered away.
“‘All right?’ I asked in a whisper.
“‘All right!” whispered the shadow.
“I lowered the other swag.
“‘All right?’
“‘All right!’ said the shadow, and just then the moon came out.
“‘All right!’ says the shadow.
“But it wasn’t all right. It was the landlord himself!
“It seems he got up and went out to the back in the night, and just happened to be coming in when my mate Tom was sneaking out of the back door. He saw Tom, and Tom saw him, and smoked through a hole in the palings into the scrub. The boss looked up at the window, and dropped to it. I went down, funky enough, I can tell you, and faced him. He said:
“‘Look here, mate, why didn’t you come straight to me, and tell me how you was fixed, instead of sneaking round the trouble in that fashion? There’s no occasion for it.’