Before the furious creature could recover himself after having given the empty air such a drubbing, the detectives approached him from the rear and in a twinkling he was overcome.
“What does this mean?” he asked, attempting an air of dignity.
“You shall have to come and find out!” was the laconic reply deigned him by the grim policeman who had him in charge.
“Mr. Kean, I am sorry to tell you, but your daughter will have to come to the police court to tell what she knows of these persons,” said the leader of the plain clothes men.
“I’m not sorry! I want to see it through!” cried Judy.
“And so, we are to thank you for this indignity,” hissed Madame.
“Thank me or the picturesque garden by your cottage—whichever you choose. It is a stirring thing to creep in that lovely garden on a romantic night and suddenly to see a poor lame man who has won the sympathy of the community, come springing out in running togs and have him beat Douglas Fairbanks and George Walsh in his jumping. Then to have the gentle, courteous Madame Misel boldly state that Wellington is composed of blockheads,—all in perfect German, too, which was a strange language for such good Frenchmen to employ in the bosom of the family.”
“Judy, I wouldn’t say any more!” said her father, but his eye was twinkling as he tucked his daughter’s hand under his arm.
Mr. Tucker and Mr. Kean met as long lost friends. They were what Judy called soul brothers from the first. The old train conductor stopped to exchange greetings with his one-time acquaintance. He was loud in his praise of the young lady who had scared them all to death by jumping on the rear end of the moving train. He said nothing of the scolding he had given her before he found out she was Bob Kean’s daughter.
The sketch book was convincing evidence that the sporty couple were no other than Monsieur and Madame Misel. Judy told her story well to the chief, showing the clever sketches taken before and after.