He forced Ike into a chair and sitting opposite him as the others gathered around he asked:
“Who are you, lad?”
Ike made no answer, but stared as though he were hard of hearing—a poor trick, indeed, for the man said:
“Oh, that won’t do; don’t come the deaf and dumb dodge on us. Mutes don’t stand in their stocking feet in a dark hall with their ear to a keyhole.”
Ike laughed; he saw that his dodge didn’t work and he came a more cunning one. He said:
“I am on to you men. You are not actors, you are robbers.”
The men all glared and exchanged glances.
The man who had captured Ike asked:
“Who sent you here?”
“No one sent me; I followed in here.”