"Got you, have I! thought you'd double, did you, and slip out when I'd run past? Artful, but it didn't quite do,--not this time, at any rate." His captor shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. It was a policeman, a huge, bearded fellow, six feet high. Bertie was like a plaything in his hands. On hearing some one coming, the boy, without any thought of what he was doing, had slipped the hand which held the purse behind his back. The policeman was down on it at once. "What's that you've got there?" He twisted the boy round, revealing the hand which held the purse. He took it away. "Oh, that's it, is it? You hadn't got time to throw it away, I suppose, or perhaps you thought it was too good to lose--worth running a little risk for, eh? Well, you've run the risk just once too often." By this time others had come into the entry, and now Bertie recognised the words which he had heard. What they had been shouting was, "Stop thief!" The new comers showed a lively interest in the captive. A man, who looked like a respectable mechanic, reckoned him up. "That's not the boy," he said. "Oh, isn't it? It doesn't look like it, not when he was hiding here, and holding the purse in his hand!" The policeman held up the purse with an air of smiling scorn. "Had he got the purse? Well, whether he had or whether he hadn't, all I can say is he isn't the boy who took it; I'm willing to take my oath to that. He was a different-looking sort of boy altogether, and I was standing as close to him as I am to you." "I never took the purse," said Bertie, with dogged lips and dogged eyes. He realized that great trouble had come upon him, as he writhed and twisted in the policeman's hand. "It was given to me." "Yes, I daresay, and by a particular friend, no doubt. You come along with me, my lad, and tell that tale elsewhere." The policeman began to drag the lad along the entry. "The boy will go quietly, I daresay, if you give him a chance," observed the man who had previously spoken. "However it may be about the purse being found upon him, I'm prepared to prove that that's not the boy who took it." "Well, you can come and give your evidence, can't you? It's no good standing arguing here; the lad had got the purse, and I've got the lad, and that's quite enough for me." "Where are you going to take him to?" "Marlborough Street Police Court." "All right, I'll come round and say what I've got to say. My name's William Standing,--I'm a picture framer; I'll go and tell my governor where I'm off to, and I'll be there as soon as you are." The man walked away. The policeman proceeded to haul Bertie off with him again. The boy was speechless. He was tired, his feet were sore; the policeman's pace was almost more than he could manage. In consequence, every now and then he received a jerk, which all but pitched him forward on his nose.