Jabez told the officer a romantic story, all intended for publication in the daily papers by-and-by, of how he had gone to work to discover the whereabouts of the runaway convict, and then arranged that the detective was to arrest George and take him off, and charge him with being a convict at large, while he telegraphed to the prison authorities, and he and Jabez were to share the reward offered for the capture, Jabez in addition getting the fame for his sagacity and ingenuity. The affair would be well reported, and would give Mr. Duck what he was pleased to call a rare ‘leg up’ in his profession. Who could say but that the authorities might not employ him by-and-by? He would start on his own account on the strength of the advertisement, and be sure of the private patronage of missing-friend and disappeared-daughter hunters. So it was all arranged, and that afternoon, as the shadows fell and the inmates of the little parlour were sitting round the fire, Detective Johnson, with two men in uniform, came down the street, and reconnoitered the house from the opposite side of the way. There was only one thing Jabez had forgotten, and that was to give his friend a description of the man. Johnson remembered it afterwards, and would have gone back and asked whether he was young or old, and what he was like, but there was no time, as the bird might fly when the darkness came on. Now it happened that at that very moment Shakspeare was flattening his face against the window-pane, and peering down into the street. His quick eyes caught those of the detective fixed upon the house. ‘Hulloh, father!’ cried Shakspeare; ‘look here! Isn’t that the ‘tec that we see so often at the races?’ At the word ‘tec,’ George’s face went deadly pale, and he sprang from his seat. Old Jarvis looked out, and he took the situation in in a moment. ‘By Jove, yes! He’s watching the house; and there’s two peelers at the corner.’ Bess, with a wild cry, flung her arms around George’s neck. Old Jarvis hesitated a moment. Then he turned to George. ‘Quick, quick!—this way!’ he said. ‘I may save you yet!’ Hardly knowing what he did, George followed the old showman from the room, and ran upstairs with him. Bess staggered after him as far as the door, and then fell fainting into the arms of Mrs. Jarvis. At that moment a loud knock. ‘Let’em knock,’ shouted Jarvis down the stairs. ‘Don’t open till I tell you.’ The knocking continued. There was a sound of hurried movements in the room above, and Mrs. Jarvis wondered what her husband was doing. Presently there was a noise of some one going rapidly upstairs, and in a minute or two all was still. The knocking grew louder and louder, and a curious crowd, attracted by the noise, gathered outside. The policemen had been sent round to the back to watch the garden, lest the bird should attempt to fly that way. Mrs. Jarvis ran half-way up the stairs.