"They were the old ones," Bobby consoled him. "At least it was kind of him not to take the best ones when they were just as convenient."
"Do you fink it's gypsies?" Master Augustus asked the question with a fearful glance over his shoulder. He had been told that gypsies carried off bad little boys.
"I don't know what it is," Peter said sullenly, "but if I ever ketches anybody snooping about this place who has no business to snoop——" The sentence ended in a threatening silence.
The four boys looked at one another and shuddered delightedly.
"It's like a book," Master Wallace declared. "The miscreant has foiled us at every turn."
"Let's form a detective bureau!" Bobby rose to the occasion. "You can be chief of the local police, Peter. And since you find the mystery beyond your power to solve, you have called to your aid a private detective force—that's us. Jerome and Wallace and me can be detectives, and Augustus can be a policeman."
"I want to be a detective, too," objected Augustus.
"It's nice to be a policeman," soothed Bobby. "When we've tracked down the thief, we'll call to you and say, 'Officer, handcuff this man!' and you'll snap 'em on his wrist and lead him to jail."
"All right!" agreed Augustus. "Give 'em to me."