He looked about him thoughtfully.
It was a basement room, lighted only by windows three feet wide and a foot high.
I should like to set fire to the building, and burn it up,” thought the tramp. “That would cost them something. But it wouldn’t be safe. Like as not I would be burned up myself, or at any rate be taken again in getting away. No, no! that won’t do. I wonder if I can’t get through one of those windows?”
He stood on the chair, and as the room was low-ceiled he found he could easily reach the windows.
He shook them and found to his joy that it would be a comparatively easy thing to remove one of them.
What fools they are!” he muttered contemptuously. “Did they really expect to keep me here?”
He removed the window, and by great effort succeeded in raising himself so that he might have a chance of drawing himself through the aperture. It did not prove so easy as he expected. He did, however, succeed at length, and drew a long breath of satisfaction as he found himself once more in the possession of his liberty.
I’m a free man once more,” he said. “What next?”
He would have been glad to return to the miser’s house and possess himself of some of his gold, but the faint gray
of dawn was already perceptible, and there was too much risk attending it.