They were uncommonly active and sly little fellows, but, despite their utmost efforts, they failed to gain a position of vantage from which to observe the enemy without being seen. They did, indeed, manage to make out that the two men were for some time busily and stealthily engaged in the neighbourhood of Joe Dashwood's dwelling, but what they were doing could not be ascertained. After repeated and desperate efforts to overcome his difficulties, at the risk of his neck and to the detriment of his shins, the Bloater at last sat down on a doorstep within a dark passage, and feigned to tear his hair. "Now ain't it wexin'?" he whispered, appealing to his small friend. "Aggrawatin' beyond endoorance," replied Jim, with looks of sympathy. "Wot _is_ to be done?" demanded the Bloater. "Invite a Bobby to come an' help us," suggested Jim. "H'm! an' stop 'em in their game, p'raps, at a pint w'ere nobody could prove nothink against 'em, besides bringin' on ourselves the purlite inquiry, `Wot are _you_ up to 'ere?'" Little Jim looked disconsolate and said nothing, which, as the Bloater testily remarked, was another of his witty rejoinders. "Well, then," said Jim, "we must just wait till the fire breaks out an' then bust upon 'em all of a 'eap." "H'm! much they'd care for _your_ bustin' on 'em. No, Jim, we must risk a little. Never wenter, never win, you know. Just you go round by the other end of the street and creep as close as you can; you're small, you know, an' won't be so easy seen as me. Try to make out wot they're up to and then--" "Then wot?" "W'y, come back an' let me know. Away!" said the Bloater, waving his hand with the air of a field-marshal. Jim disappeared at once and was absent about ten minutes, during which Master Robert Herring sat in the dark passage biting his nails and feeling really uncomfortable, as is usually the case with energetic spirits when reduced to unavoidable inaction. Presently Little Jim returned with, as his friend and patron remarked, his eyes like two saucers, and his face as white as a sheet. "Hallo, Jim, wot's up?" "Oh, Bob!" gasped Jim. "Speak!" exclaimed the Bloater, seizing him by the shoulders and shaking him violently. "They've got the 'ouse choke full o' combustibles," gasped Jim in an excited whisper. "I see 'em stuffin' straw and pitch, an' I dun know wot all, through a small back winder." "So--_now's_ the time for a Bobby," observed the Bloater, leaping up.