The captain came down in a red dressing-gown, the skirt of which flapped idly in the breeze that came through an open window in the office. His bare feet were shoved into a pair of carpet slippers, each foot in the wrong slipper. With one hand he held a candle that wiggled in the candle-stick and dropped wax on his wrist, and with the other hand tried to keep the dressing-gown about his person. His frame of mind faithfully carried out the spirit of the picture. To any guilty prisoner he would have been indeed a terrifying spectacle; but he could do nothing to the innocent and insulted gentlemen who had been haled before him. He therefore relieved himself on their captor. The poor man got such a dressing down, that when they left the office, Randolph presented him with full forgiveness, a dollar bill, and the advice to learn as soon as possible to tell a Senior from a Freshman. The next policeman they met was old George Smith. He held them up with a look of surprise, and a remark that he thought they had been in college too long to be "ragging" barber's poles. When they explained to him, however, he of course believed them, and grinned as he perceived something in the wind. "It is lucky that was George," said Stoughton, as they went on. "If we had struck a strange cop, who thought we were liars, we should have brought down the wrong bird. That police captain is just exactly primed and loaded to the muzzle, and all ready to go off. Now for Bullam!" They had now reached Quincy Square, and saw the fated form of Bullam loom in the offing. They made for him boldly; there was no need of finessing in his case. The moment his hawk eye caught sight of the ill-concealed pole, he bore down on them with a grim joy. "What have you got under that coat?" he demanded in his usual suave tone. "None of your business," responded Jack Randolph, with an inward chuckle. "It isn't, eh! Do you think I can't see that pole a-sticking out there? Do you think you can steal signs under my very nose? You come along with me now, and we'll see whether it's none of my business." "If your insulting remarks refer to this barber-pole," replied Randolph, producing the pole with ostentatious confidence, "allow me to tell you that it belongs to us, and we have a perfect right to carry it wherever we please. Although, as I said before, it is none of your business, I will condescend to let you know that I bought it lately, and have a receipt for it in my pocket." "You can't give me no such bluff as that," sneered Bullam. "You can tell that to the captain of the precinct. I'll give you a chance to show your receipt." "Look here, my man," (nothing makes a gentleman of Bullam's class more angry than to call him "my man") answered Stoughton, "you don't deserve it after the language you have used to us, but, nevertheless, I give you fair warning not to do anything of the kind. If you take us to the captain, you will get into trouble."