Maud, if he could; then his business would be to find Offitt. "If I find him," he thought, "I'll give them something to try me for." But finally he dismissed the matter from his mind,--for this reason. He remembered seeing a friend, the year before, fall from a scaffolding and break his leg. The broken bone pierced through the leg of his trousers. This thought daunted him more than death on the gallows. The door opened, and three or four policemen came in, each leading a man by the collar, the ordinary riffraff of the street, charged with petty offences. One was very drunk and abusive. He attracted the attention of everybody in the room by his antics. He insisted on dancing a breakdown which he called the "Essence of Jeems' River"; and in the scuffle which followed, first one and then the other policeman in charge of Sleeny became involved. Sleeny was standing with his back to the window, quite alone. The temptation was too much for him. He leaped upon the sill, gave one mighty spring, caught the pipe, and slid safely to the ground. One or two passers-by saw him drop lightly to the sidewalk, but thought nothing of it. It was not the part of the jail in which prisoners were confined, and he might have been taken for a carpenter or plumber who chose that unusual way of coming from the roof. His hat blew off in his descent, but he did not waste time in looking for it. He walked slowly till he got to the corner, and then plunged through the dark and ill-smelling streets of the poor and crowded quarter, till he came by the open gate of a coal-yard. Seeing he was not pursued he went in, concealed himself behind a pile of boards and lay there until it was quite dark. He then came out and walked through roundabout ways, avoiding the gas-lights and the broad thoroughfares, to Dean Street. He climbed the fence and crept through the garden to the back door of the house. He had eaten nothing since early morning, and was beginning to be hungry. He saw there were no lights in the rear of the house, and thought if he could enter the kitchen he might get a loaf of bread without alarming the household. He tried the back door and found it fastened. But knowing the ways of the house, he raised the cellar door, went down the steps, shut the door down upon himself, groped his way to the inner stairs, and so gained the kitchen. He was walking to the cupboard when the door opened and he saw Maud coming toward him. She did not seem in the least startled to see him there. In the extremity of her terror, it may have seemed to her that he had been sent especially to her help. She walked up to him, laid her hands on his shoulders and whispered, "Oh, Sam, I am so glad to see you. Save me! Don't let him touch me! He is in there."