"I'm for ever b-b-blowing b-b-bub-b-bles, B-blinkin' b-bub-b-bles in the air."

He entered upon the last word, started ever so slightly at his reception, and then stood extremely still.

"Bubbles be blowed," he said. "B-b-burglars, what? Shall I moisten the lips? Or would you rather I wore a sickly smile? I should like it to be a good photograph. You know, you can't touch me, Reggibald. I'm in balk." His eyes wandered round the room. "Why, there's n.o.bby. And what's the game? Musical Chairs? I know a better one than that." His eyes returned to the master. "Now, don't you look and I'll hide in the ha.s.sock! Then, when I say 'Cuckoo,' you put down the musket and wish.

Then--excuse me."

Calmly he twitched a Paisley shawl from the back of the sofa and crossed to his wife. Tenderly he wrapped it about her feet and knees. By the time he had finished a third chair was awaiting him, and Numbers Three and Four had returned to their work.

"Pray sit down," drawled the master. "And lean well back.... That's right. You know, I'm awfully sorry you left your bed."

"Don't mention it," said Berry. "I wouldn't have missed this for any thing. How's Dartmoor looking?"

The fat rogue sighed.

"I have not had a holiday," he said, "for nearly two years. And night work tells, you know. Of course I rest during the day, but it isn't the same."

"How wicked! And they call this a free country. I should see your M.P.

about it. Or wasn't he up when you called?"

The other shook his head.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "he was out of Town. George, give the gentleman a match." The packer picked up a match-stand and set it by Berry's side. "I'm so sorry about the chocolates. You see, I wasn't expecting----Hullo!"

At the mention of the magical word n.o.bby had leapt from my unready grasp and trotted across to the fireplace. There, to my disgust and vexation, he fixed the master with an expectant stare, and then sat up upon his hindquarters and begged a sweatmeat.

His favourer began to heave with merriment.

"What an engaging sc.r.a.p!" he wheezed, taking a chocolate from an occasional table upon which the contents of a dessert dish had apparently been emptied. "Here, my little apostate.... Well caught!"

With an irrational rapidity the Sealyham disposed of the first comfit he had been given for more than six months. Then he resumed the attractive posture which he had found so profitable. Lazily his patron continued to respond....

Resentfully I watched the procedure, endeavouring to console myself with the reflection that in a few hours Nature would a.s.suredly administer to the backslider a more terrible and appropriate correction than any that I could devise.

Would Jonah never come?

I stole a glance at the clock. Five and twenty minutes to two. And when he did come, what then? Were he and Harry to blunder into the slough waist-high, as we had done? Impossible. There was probably a man outside--possibly a car, which would set them thinking. Then, even if the brutes got away, their game would be spoiled. It wouldn't be such a humiliating walk-over. Oh, why had Daphne come down? Her presence put any attempt at action out of the question. And why....

A taxi slowed for a distant corner and turned into the street. For a moment it seemed to falter. Then its speed was changed clumsily, and it began to grind its way in our direction. My heart began to beat violently. Again the speed was changed, and the rising snarl choked to give way to a metallic murmur, which was rapidly approaching. I could hardly breathe.... Then the noise swelled up, hung for an instant upon the very crest of earshot, only to sink abruptly as the cab swept past, taking our hopes with it.

Two-thirds of the silver had disappeared.

Berry cleared his throat.

"You know," he said, "this is an education. In my innocence I thought that a burglar shoved his swag in a sack and then pushed off, and did the rest in the back parlour of a beer-house in Notting Dale. As it is, my only wonder is that you didn't bring a brazier and a couple of melting-pots."

"Not my job," was the reply. "I'm not a receiver. Besides, you don't think that all this beautiful silver is to be broken up?" The horror of his uplifted hands would have been more convincing if both of them had been empty. "Why, in a very little while, particularly if you travel, you will have every opportunity of buying It back again in open market."

"But how comic," said Berry. "I should think you're a favourite at Lloyd's. D'you mind if I blow my nose? Or would that be a _casus belli_?"

"Not at all"--urbanely. "Indeed, if you would care to give me your word...."

Berry shook his head.

"Honour among thieves?" he said. "Unfortunately I'm honest, so you must have no truck with me. Never mind. D'you touch cards at all? Or only at Epsom?"

Beneath the green mask the mouth tightened, and I could see that the taunt had gone home. No man likes to be whipped before his underlings.

n.o.bby profited by the master's silence, and had devoured two more chocolates before Berry spoke again--this time to me.

"Gentleman seems annoyed," he remarked. "I do hope he hasn't misconstrued anything I've said. D'you think we ought to offer him breakfast? Of course, five is rather a lot, but I dare say one of them is a vegetarian, and you can pretend you don't care for haddock. Or they may have some tripe downstairs. You never know. And afterwards we could run them back to Limehouse. By the way, I wonder if I ought to tell him about the silver which-not. It's only nickel, but I don't want to keep anything back. Oh, and what about the dividend warrant? Of course it wants riveting and--er--forging, and I don't think they'd recognize it, but he could try. If I die before he goes, ask him to leave his address; then, if he leaves anything behind, the butler can send it on. I remember I left a pair of bed-socks once at Chatsworth. The Duke never sent them on, but then they were perishable. Besides, one of them followed me as far as Leicester. Instinct, you know. I wrote to _The Field_ about it." He paused to shift uneasily in his seat. "You know, if I have to sustain this pose much longer, I shall get railway spine or a hare lip or something."

"Hush," said I. "What did Alfred Austin say in 1895?"

"I know," said Berry. "'Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn.' Precisely. But then all his best work was admittedly done under the eiderdown."

The clock upon the wall was chiming the hour. Two o'clock.

Would Jonah never come?

I fancy the same query renewed its hammering at Berry's brain, for, after a moment's reflection, he turned to the master.

"I don't wish to presume upon your courtesy," he said, "but will the executive portion of your night's work finish when that remaining treasure has been bestowed?"

"So far as you are concerned."

"Oh, another appointment! Of course, this 'summer time' stunt gives you another hour, doesn't it? Well, I must wish you a warmer welcome."

"That were impossible," was the bland reply "Once or twice, I must confess, I thought you a little--er, equivocal, but let that pa.s.s. I only regret that Mrs. Pleydell, particularly, should have been so much inconvenienced."

"Don't mention it," said Berry. "As a matter of fact, we're all very pleased to have met you. You have interested us more than I can say, with true chivalry you have abstained from murder and mutilation, and you have suffered me to blow my nose, when a less courteous visitor would have obliged me to sniff with desperate and painful regularity for nearly half an hour. Can generosity go further?"

The rogue upon the club-kerb began to shake with laughter again.

"You're a good loser," he crowed. "I'll give you that. I'm quite glad you came down. Most of my hosts I never see, and that's dull, you know, dull. And those I do are so often--er--unsympathetic. Yes, I shall remember to-night."

"Going to change his rings," murmured Berry.

"And now the highly delicate question of our departure is, I am afraid, imminent. To avoid exciting impertinent curiosity, you will appreciate that we must take our leave as artlessly as possible, and that the order of our going must be characterized by no unusual circ.u.mstance, such, for instance, as a hue and cry. Anything so vulgar as a scene must at all costs be obviated. Excuse me. Blake!"

Confederate Number One stepped noiselessly to his side and listened in silence to certain instructions, which were to us inaudible.

I looked about me.

The last of the silver had disappeared. The packer was dismantling the scales as a preliminary to laying them in the last suit-case. The clerk was fastening together the sheets which he had detached from the flimsy order-book. Number Three had taken a light overcoat from a chair and was putting it on. And the time was six minutes past two....

And what of Jonah? He and Harry would probably arrive about five minutes too late. I bit my lip savagely....

Again the chief malefactor lifted up his voice.