"I shall send the police after them," warmly cried Kate.
"Will the police make them sit to me again?" impatiently asked Cornelius.
"Indeed I hope not," indignantly replied his sister.
"To leave me in such a predicament for the sake of a miserable tea- spoon!" he observed, feelingly.
"A miserable tea-spoon! one of the dozen that has been fifty years in the family, with our crest, a hawk's head, upon it too! I am astonished at you, Cornelius; a miserable tea-spoon! you speak as if you had been born with a silver spoon in your mouth!"
Cornelius sighed profoundly by way of reply; but even so tender a disappointment could not weigh long on his cheerful temper.
"After all," he philosophically observed, "they left me my idea."
"I wish the tea-spoon had been an idea," shortly said Kate.
"Well, I wish it had," placidly replied her brother; "but I have at least the consolation of having hit on the very characters I wanted—arrant thieves."
"Indeed you did, Cornelius."