It seemed probable to Bealby that he would get away up the street. The baker was engaged in elaborately falling backward, making the most of sitting down in the road, and the wind had been knocked out of him so that he could not shout. He emitted “Stop him!” in large whispers. Away ahead there were only three builder’s men sitting under the wall beyond the White Hart, consuming tea out of their tea cans. But the boy who was trimming the top of the tall privet hedge outside the doctor’s saw the assault of the baker and incontinently uttered the shout that the baker could not. Also he fell off his steps with great alacrity and started in pursuit of Bealby. A young man from anywhere—perhaps the grocer’s shop—also started for Bealby. But the workmen were slow to rise to the occasion. Bealby could have got past them. And then, abruptly at the foot of the street ahead the tramp came into view, a battered disconcerting figure. His straw-coloured hat which had recently been wetted and dried in the sun was a swaying mop. The sight of Bealby seemed to rouse him from some disagreeable meditations. He grasped the situation with a terrible quickness. Regardless of the wisdom of the pastoral Berbers he extended his arms and stood prepared to intercept. Bealby thought at the rate of a hundred thoughts to the minute. He darted sideways and was up the ladder and among the beams and rafters of the unfinished roof before the pursuit had more than begun. “Here, come off that,” cried the foreman builder, only now joining in the hunt with any sincerity. He came across the road while Bealby regarded him wickedly from the rafters above. Then as the good man made to ascend Bealby got him neatly on the hat, it was a bowler hat, with a tile. This checked the advance. There was a disposition to draw a little off and look up at Bealby. One of the younger builders from the opposite sidewalk got him very neatly in the ribs with a stone. But two other shots went wide and Bealby shifted to a more covered position behind the chimney stack. From here, however, he had a much less effective command of the ladder, and he perceived that his tenure of the new house was not likely to be a long one. Below, men parleyed. “Who _is_ ’e?” asked the foreman builder. “Where’d ’e come from?” “’E’s a brasted little thief,” said the tramp. “’E’s one of the wust characters on the road.” The baker was recovering his voice now. “There’s a reward out for ’im,” he said, “and ’e butted me in the stummick.” “’Ow much reward?” asked the foreman builder. “Five pound for the man who catches him.” “’Ere!” cried the foreman builder in an arresting voice to the tramp. “Just stand away from that ladder....”