"I had fairly to drive him out of these offices," said the clerk. "He is of a very excitable temperament, to say the least. But I did not think there was any real harm in him."

"Just the same," Neale objected, "he wants to keep away from the house and not frighten folks at night."

"Oh, we will soon stop that," said Mr. Howbridge's representative. "I will report it to the police."

"But perhaps he does not mean any harm," faltered Agnes.

"I do not think he does," said the man. "Nevertheless, we will warn him."

This promise relieved Agnes a good deal. She was tender-hearted and she did not wish the junkman arrested. But when evening came and he once more stared in at the windows, and tapped on the panes, and wandered around and around the house--

"Well, this is too much!" cried the girl, when Neale and Mrs. McCall both ran out to try to apprehend the marauder. "I do wish we had a telephone. I am going to _beg_ Ruth to have one put in just as soon as she comes back. We could call the police and they would catch that man."

Perhaps the police, had they been informed, might have caught Costello. But Mrs. McCall and Neale did not. The latter remained until the family went to bed and then the boy did a little lurking in the bushes on his own account. But he did not spy the strange man again.

In the morning, without saying anything to the Kenway family about it, Neale O'Neil set out to find Costello, the junkman. He certainly was not afraid of the man by daylight. He had had experience with him.

From Mr. Howbridge's clerk he had already obtained the address the junkman had given when he was at the office. The place was down by the ca.n.a.l in the poorer section of the town, of course.

There were several cellars and first-floors of old houses given up to ragpickers and dealers in junk of all kinds. After some inquiry among a people who quite evidently were used to dodging the answering of incriminating questions, Neale learned that there had been a junkman living in a certain room up to within a day or two before, whose name was Costello. But he had disappeared. Oh, yes! Neale's informant was quite sure that Costello had gone away for good.

"But he had a horse and wagon. He had a business of his own. Where has he gone?" demanded the boy.

He was gone. That was all these people would tell him. They pointed out the old shed where Costello had kept his horse. Was it a good horse? It was a good looking horse, with smiles which seemed to indicate that Costello was a true Gypsy and was not above "doctoring"

a horse into a deceiving appearance of worthiness.

"He drove away with that horse. He did not say where he was going. I guess he go to make a sale, eh? He will come back with some old plug that he make look fine, eh?"

This was the nearest to real information that Neale could obtain, and this from a youth who worked for one of the established junk dealers.

So Neale had to give up the inquiry as useless. When he came back to the old Corner House he confessed to Agnes:

"He is hiding somewhere, and coming around here after dark. Wish I had a shotgun--"

"Oh, Neale! How wicked!"

"Loaded with rock-salt," grinned the boy. "A dose of that might do the Gyp. a world of good."

CHAPTER XX--PLOTTERS AT WORK

The adventures of the Corner House girls and their friends did not usually include anything very terrible. Perhaps there was no particular peril threatened by Costello, the Gypsy junkman, who was lurking about the premises at night. Just the same, Agnes Kenway was inclined to do what Mrs. McCall suggested and throw the silver bracelet out upon the ash heap.

Of course they had no moral right to do that, and the housekeeper's irritable suggestion was not to be thought of for a serious moment.

Yet Agnes would have been glad to get rid of the responsibility connected with possession of Queen Alma's ornament.

"If it is that Costello heirloom!" she said. "Maybe after all it belongs to Miss Ann t.i.tus's friend, Sarah Whatshername. Goodness! I wonder how many other people will come to claim the old thing. I do wish Ruth would return."

"Just so you could hand the responsibility over to her," accused Neale.

"M-mm. Well?"

"We ought to hunt up those Gypsies--'Beeg Jeem' and his crowd--and get their side of the story," declared Neale.

"No! I will not!" cried Agnes. "I have met all the Gypsies I ever want to meet."

But within the hour she met another. She was in the kitchen, and Linda and Mrs. McCall were both in the front of the house, cleaning. There came a timid-sounding rap on the door. Agnes unthinkingly threw it open.

A slender girl stood there--a girl younger than Agnes herself. This stranger was very ragged, not at all clean looking, and very brown.

She had flashing white teeth and flashing black eyes.

Agnes actually started back when she saw her and suppressed a scream.

For she instantly knew the stranger was one of the Gypsy tribe. That she seemed to be alone was the only thing that kept Agnes from slamming the door again right in the girl's face.

"Will the kind lady give me something to eat?" whined the beggar. "I am hungry. I eat nothing all the day."

Agnes was doubtful of the truth of this. The dark girl did not look ill-fed. But she had an appearance of need just the same; and it was a rule of the Corner House household never to turn a hungry person away.

"Stay there on the mat," Agnes finally said. "Don't come in. I will see what I can find for you."

"Yes, Ma'am," said the girl.

"Haven't you had any breakfast?" asked Agnes, moving toward the pantry, and her sympathies becoming excited.

"No, Ma'am. And no supper last night. n.o.body give me nothing."

"Well," said Agnes, with more warmth, expanding to this tale of woe, as was natural, "I will see what I can find."

She found a plate heaped with bread and meat and a wedge of cake, which she brought to the screen door. The girl had stood there motionless, only her black eyes roved about the kitchen and seemed to mark everything in it.

"Sit down there on the steps and eat it," said Agnes, pa.s.sing the plate through a narrow opening, as she might have handed food into the cage of an animal at a menagerie. She really was half afraid of the girl just because she looked so much like a Gypsy.

The stranger ate as though she was quite as ravenously hungry as she had claimed to be. There could be no doubt that the food disappeared with remarkable celerity. She sat for a moment or two after she had eaten the last crumb with the plate in her lap. Then she rose and brought it timidly to the door.

"Did you have enough?" asked Agnes, feeling less afraid now.

"Oh, yes, Lady! It was so nice," and the girl flashed her teeth in a beaming smile. She was quite a pretty girl--if she had only been clean and decently dressed.

She handed the plate to Agnes, and then turned and ran out of the yard and down the street as fast as she could run. Agnes stared after her in increased amazement. Why had she run away?

"If she is a Gypsy--Well, they are queer people, that is sure. Oh! What is this?"

Her fingers had found something on the under side of the plate. She turned it up and saw a soiled piece of paper sticking there. Agnes, wondering, if no longer alarmed, drew the paper from the plate, turned it over, and saw that some words were scrawled in blue pencil on the paper.

"Goodness me! More mysteries!" gasped the Corner House girl.