“No, he didn’t.”
“Did he give you the matches, sure enough?”
“Yes, he did; but he didn’t know what I wanted them for.”
“When you was out on such a business as that, how did you venture to risk having him along—and him a detective? How’s that?”
The boy hesitated, fumbled with his buttons in an embarrassed way, then said, shyly,
“I know about detectives, on account of having them in the family; and if you don’t want them to find out about a thing, it’s best to have them around when you do it.”
The cyclone of laughter which greeted this naïve discharge of wisdom did not modify the poor little waif’s embarrassment in any large degree.