Thus was this waif rescued, and he now discussed with his former comrade the prospect of transferring themselves and their powers, mental and physical, to Canada. Diverging from this subject to Bobby’s father, and his dark designs, Tim asked if Ned Frog had absolutely decided to break into Sir Richard Brandon’s house, and Bobby replied that he had; that his father had wormed out of the butler, who was a soft stupid sort of cove, where the plate and valuables were kept, and that he and another man had arranged to do it.
“Is the partikler night fixed?” asked Tim.
“Yes; it’s to be the last night o’ this month.”
“Why not give notice?” asked Tim.
“’Cause I won’t peach on daddy,” said Bob Frog stoutly.
Little Tim received this with a “quite right, old dosser,” and then proposed that the meeting should adjourn, as he was expected back at the Home by that time.
Two weeks or so after that, Police-Constable Number 666 was walking quietly along one of the streets of his particular beat in the West-end, with that stateliness of step which seems to be inseparable from place, power, and six feet two.
It was a quiet street, such as Wealth loves to inhabit. There were few carriages passing along it, and fewer passengers. Number 666 had nothing particular to do—the inhabitants being painfully well-behaved, and the sun high. His mind, therefore, roamed about aimlessly, sometimes bringing playfully before him a small abode, not very far distant, where a pretty woman was busy with household operations, and a ferocious policeman, about three feet high, was taking into custody an incorrigible criminal of still smaller size.
A little boy, with very long arms and legs, might have been seen following our friend Giles Scott, until the latter entered upon one of those narrow paths made by builders on the pavements of streets when houses are undergoing repairs. Watching until Giles was half way along it, the boy ran nimbly up and accosted him with a familiar—
“Well, old man, ’ow are you?”