“The gate is n't locked, and some beggar has stolen it. I hope it will do him good,” added Polly, turning from her exploring expedition.
“If Tom could get out, I should think he'd carried it off; but not being a rat, he can't go through the bits of windows; so it was n't him,” said Fanny, disconsolately, for she began to think this double loss a punishment for letting angry passions rise, “Let's open the door and tell him about it,” proposed Polly.
“He'll crow over us. No; we'll open it and go to bed, and he can come out when he likes. Provoking boy! if he had n't plagued us so, we should have had a nice time.”
Unbolting the cellar door, the girls announced to the invisible captive that they were through, and then departed much depressed. Half-way up the second flight, they all stopped as suddenly as if they had seen a ghost; for looking over the banisters was Tom's face, crocky but triumphant, and in either hand a junk of candy, which he waved above them as he vanished, with the tantalizing remark, “Don't you wish you had some?”
“How in the world did he get out?” cried Fanny, steadying herself after a start that nearly sent all three tumbling down stairs.
“Coal-hole!” answered a spectral voice from the gloom above.
“Good gracious! He must have poked up the cover, climbed into the street, stole the candy, and sneaked in at the shed-window while we were looking for it.”
“Cats got it, did n't they?” jeered the voice in a tone that made Polly sit down and laugh till she could n't laugh any longer.
“Just give Maud a bit, she's so disappointed. Fan and I are sick of it, and so will you be, if you eat it all,” called Polly, when she got her breath.
“Go to bed, Maudie, and look under your pillow when you get there,” was the oracular reply that came down to them, as Tom's door closed after a jubilant solo on the tin pan.