Tim shook his head. The yellow paper with big black letters told him nothing. Even the big figures, "£20 Reward," standing alone at the top, had no meaning for him. "I can't read, sir," he said, growing redder than before.
"Oh indeed! and who was it then that told you to come here about the children to ask the way, so that you could take them home, you know, and get the reward all nice and handy? You thought maybe you'd get it straight away, and that we'd send 'em home for you—was that what father or mother thought?"
Tim looked up, completely puzzled.
"I don't know anything about a reward," he said, "and I haven't no father or mother. Di——" but here he stopped short. "Diana told me to come to you," he was going to have said, when it suddenly struck him that the gipsy girl had bid him beware of mentioning any names.
"Who?" said the superintendent sharply.
"I can't say," said Tim. "It was a friend o' mine—that's all I can say—as told me to come here."
"A friend, eh? I'm thinking we'll have to know some more about some of your friends before we're done with you. And where is these same children, then? You can tell us that anyway!"
"No," said Tim, beginning to take fright, "I can't. They'd be afeared—dreadful—if they saw one o' your kind. I'll find my own way to Sandle'ham if you can't tell it me," and he turned to go.
But the policeman called Simpkins, at a sign from his superior, caught hold of him.
"Not so fast, young man, not so fast," said Boyds. "You'll have to tell us where these there children are afore you're off."