"But they tell me you were caught red-handed," said I. "Were not a half-dozen spoons found upon your person?"
"In my hand," returned the prisoner. "The spoons were in my hand when I was arrested, and they were seen there by the owner, by the police, and by the usual crowd of small boys that congregate at such embarrassing moments, springing up out of sidewalks, dropping down from the heavens, swarming in from everywhere. I had no idea there were so many small boys in the world until I was arrested, and found myself the cynosure of a million or more innocent blue eyes."
[Illustration]
"Were they all blue-eyed?" I queried, thinking the point interesting from a scientific point of view, hoping to discover that curiosity of a morbid character was always found in connection with eyes of a specified hue.
"Oh no; I fancy not," returned my host. "But to a man with a load of another fellow's spoons in his possession, and a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, everything looks blue."
"I don't doubt it," I replied. "But—er—just how, now, could you defend yourself when every bit of evidence, and—you will excuse me for saying so—conclusive evidence at that, pointed to your guilt?"
"The spoons were a gift," he answered.
"But the owner denied that."
"I know it; that's where the beastly part of it all came in. They were not given to me by the owner, but by a lot of mean, low-down, practical-joke-loving ghosts."
Number 5010's anger as he spoke these words was terrible to witness, and as he strode up and down the floor of his cell and dashed his arms right and left, I wished for a moment that I was elsewhere. I should not have flown, however, even had the cell door been open and my way clear, for his suggestion of a supernatural agency in connection with his crime whetted my curiosity until it was more keen than ever, and I made up my mind to hear the story to the end, if I had to commit a crime and get myself sentenced to confinement in that prison for life to do so.