“Yas,” replied my master.
“All clear?”
Stumpy looked up and down the street and then hurriedly whispered, “No.”
Instantly the voice within was silent, and Stumpy was to all appearance sleeping soundly and heavily, as if tired nature in him had fairly reached its last strait.
The distant footsteps came nearer; and still he slept on, snoring gently and regularly. The policeman advanced leisurely, turning his lantern first on this doorway, then on that window; trying now a shutter-bar, then a lock. At last he stood opposite the doorstep where Stumpy lay. It was a critical moment. He turned his lamp full on the boy’s sleeping face, he took hold of his arm and gently shook him, he tried the bolt of the door against which he leaned. The sleeper only grunted drowsily and settled down to still heavier slumber, and the policeman, evidently satisfied, walked on.
“Is he gone?” asked the voice within, the moment the retreating footsteps showed this.
“Yas, but he’ll be back,” whispered the boy.
And so he was. Three times he paced the street, and every time found the boy in the same position, and wrapped in the same profound slumber. Then at last he strode slowly onward to the end of his beat, and his footsteps died gradually away.
“Now?” inquired the voice.
“Yas,” replied Stumpy.