Clare examined it, and found it easy enough. “I won’t undo one knot,” he answered, “until there’s a policeman in the room. If you make a noise, I will stuff your mouth.” His dread was that his mistress might hear, and spoil all. “It’s her house,” he said to himself, “but they’re my captives!” Tommy lay still, and the police came. When they untied and drew out the cork of the scullery window, Clare thought he had seen him before, but could not remember where. One of the policemen, however, the moment his eyes fell on his face, cried out joyfully, “Ah, ha, my beauty! I’ve been a lookin’ for you!” “Never set eyes on ye afore,” growled the fellow. “Don’t ye say now ye ain’t a dear friend o’ mine,” insisted the policeman, “when I carry yer pictur’ in my bosom!” He drew out a pocket-book, and from it a photograph, at which he gazed with satisfaction, comparing it with the face before him. In another moment Clare recognized the lad sent by Maidstone to exchange band-boxes with him. “Her majesty the queen wants you for that robbery, you know!” said the policeman. A boy who loved romance and generosity more than truth and righteousness, would now have regretted the chance he had lost of doing a fine action, and sought yet to set the rascal free. There are men who cheat and make presents; there are men who are saints abroad and churls at home, as Bunyan says; there are men who screw down the wages of their clerks and leave vast sums to the poor; men who build churches with the proceeds of drunkenness; men who promote bubble companies and have prayers in their families morning and evening; men, in a word, who can be very generous with what is not their own; for nothing ill-gotten is a man’s own any more than the money in a thief’s pocket: Clare was not of the contemptible order of the falsely generous. Profiting, doubtless, by Maidstone’s own example, the fellow had, as Clare now learned, run away from his master, carrying with him the contents of the till: whether he deserved punishment more than his master, may be left undiscussed. When first Miss Tempest’s friends heard of the attempt to break into her house, they said--what could she expect if she took tramps into her service! They were considerably astonished, however, when they read in the newspaper the terms in which the magistrate had spoken of the admirable courage and contrivance of Miss Tempest’s page, and the resolution with which the women of her household had seconded him. If every third house were as well defended, he said, the crime of burglary would disappear. After the trial, Clare begged and was granted an interview with the magistrate. He told him what he knew about Tommy, and entreated he might be sent to some reformatory, to be kept from bad company until he was able to distinguish between right and wrong, which he thought he hardly could at present. The magistrate promised it should be done, and with kind words dismissed him.