“Why have you left your posts?”
The effect of the interruption on the Messrs. Cassidy and Donahue was pleasingly instantaneous. They seemed to shrink to almost normal proportions, and their manner took on an attractive deference.
Officer Donahue saluted.
“If ye plaze, sorr—”
Officer Cassidy also saluted, simultaneously.
“’Twas like this, sorr—”
The captain froze Officer Cassidy with a glance and, leaving him congealed, turned to Officer Donahue.
“Oi wuz standing on th’ fire-escape, sorr,” said Officer Donahue, in a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded Archie, who hadn’t known he could talk like that, “accordin’ to instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and found this duck—found the accused, sorr—in front of the mirror, examinin’ himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy for assistance. We pinched—arrested um, sorr.”
The captain looked at Archie. It seemed to Archie that he looked at him coldly and with contempt.
“Who is he?”