He was not getting on, and to gain time he bade her repeat the stanza.
“I think I understand now; I’ve never gone in much for poetry, you know,” he explained humbly.
“Burglars are natural poets, I suppose,” she continued. “A burglar just has to have imagination or he can’t climb through the window of a house he has never seen before. He must imagine everything perfectly—the silver on the sideboard, the watch under the pillow, and the butler stealing down the back stairs with a large, shiny pistol in his hand.”
“Certainly,” Deering agreed readily. “And if he runs into a policeman on the way out he’s got to imagine that it’s an old college friend and embrace him.”
“You mustn’t spoil a pretty idea that way!” she admonished in a tone that greatly softened the rebuke. “Come to think of it, you haven’t told me your name yet; of course, if you become a burglar, you will have a great number of names, but I’d like awfully to know your true one.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because you seem nice and well brought up for a burglar, and I liked your going up to the moon and poking your finger into it. That makes me feel that I’d like to know you.”
“Well, the circumstances being as they are, and being really a thief, you mustn’t ask me to tell my real name; for all I know you may be a detective in disguise.”
“I’m not—really,” she said—he found her “reallys” increasingly enchanting.
“You might call me Friar Tuck or Little John. I’m travelling with Robin Hood, you remember.”