"Fool yourself!" replied the Bully; "and what sort of a fool is the man who comes up a blind alley, looking after a girl that will not kiss him when he bids her?" "Anyway," put in another of the crew, who had just now lifted the heavy cellar-door, "other people may find it handy to hop down here when the 'beaks' are too near them. It's a handy place to know of, in a dark night, if the dear deacons do choose to keep it open for a poor psalm-singing tramp, who has no chance at the station-house. Here, Lopp, you are the tallest--jump in and tell us what is there"; and at this moment the Dane caught sight of my unfortunate ladder, lying full in the moonlight. I could see him seize it, and run to the doorway with it, with a deep laugh, and some phrase of his own country talk, which I did not understand. "The deacons are very good," said the savage who had lifted the cellar-door. "They make everything handy for us poor fellows." And though he had not planted the ladder, he was the first to run down, and called for the rest to follow. The Dane was second, Lopp was third, and "The Bully," as the big rascal seemed to be called by distinction, was the fourth. I saw him disappear from my view, with a mixture of wonder and terror which I will not describe. I seized my light overcoat, which always hung in the passage. I flung open my sliding-door, and shut it again behind me. I looked into the black of the cellar to see the reflections from their distant lanterns, and, without a sound, I drew up my ladder. Then I ran to the head of the alley, and sounded my rattle as I would have sounded the trumpet for a charge in battle. The officers joined me in one moment. "I am the man who spoke to the captain about these rowdies. Four of them are in the cellar of the church yonder now." "Do you know who?" "One they called Lopp, and one they called Bully Bigg," said I. "I do not know the others' names." The officers were enraptured. I led them, and two other patrolmen who joined us, to the shelter of my wing-wall. In a few minutes the head of the Dane appeared, as he was lifted from below. With an effort and three or four oaths, he struggled out upon the ground, to be seized and gagged the moment he stepped back. With varying fortunes, Bigg and Lopp emerged, and were seized and handcuffed in turn. The fourth surrendered on being summoned. What followed comes into the line of daily life and the morning newspaper so regularly that I need not describe it. Against the Dane it proved that endless warrants could be brought immediately. His lair of stolen baggage and other property was unearthed, and countless sufferers claimed their own. I was able to recover Frida's and her mother's possessions--the locks on the trunks still unbroken. The Dane himself would have been sent to the Island on I know not how many charges, but that the Danish minister asked for him that he might be hanged in Denmark, and he was sent and hanged accordingly.