“When is this to cease?” he curtly demanded. “When are these early-morning trespasses upon an honest citizen’s property coming to an end? I wake with a light heart, expecting that my house, which is certainly as much mine as is any man’s in Washington, would be handed over this very day for my habitation, when what do I see—one police officer leaving the front door and another sunning himself in the vestibule. How many more of you are within I do not presume to ask. Some half-dozen, no doubt, and not one of you smart enough to wind up this matter and have done with it.” “Ah! I don’t know about that,” I drawled, and looked very wise. His curiosity was aroused. “Anything new?” he snapped. “Possibly,” I returned, in a way to exasperate a saint. He stepped on to the porch beside me. I was too abstracted to notice; I was engaged in eying Rudge. “Do you know,” said I, after an instant of what I meant should be one of uncomfortable suspense on his part, “that I have a greater respect than ever for that animal of yours since learning the very good reason he has for refusing to cross the street?” “Ha! what’s that?” he asked, with a quick look behind him at the watchful brute straining toward him with nose over the gutter. “He sees farther than we can. His eyes penetrate walls and partitions,” I remarked. Then, carelessly and with the calm drawing forth of a folded bit of paper which I held out toward him, I added: “By the way, here is something of yours.” His hand rose instinctively to take it; then dropped. “I don’t know what you mean,” he remarked. “You have nothing of mine.” “No? Then John Judson Moore had another brother.” And I thrust the paper back into my pocket. He followed it with his eye. It was the memorandum I had found in the old book of memoirs plucked from the library shelf within, and he recognized it for his and saw that I did also. But he failed to show the white feather. “You are good at ransacking,” he observed; “pity that it can not be done to more purpose.” I smiled and made a fresh start. With my hand thrust again into my pocket, I remarked, without even so much as a glance at him: “I fear that you do some injustice to the police. We are not such bad fellows; neither do we waste as much time as you seem to think.” And drawing out my hand, with the little filigree ball in it, I whirled the latter innocently round and round on my finger. As it flashed under his eye, I cast him a penetrating look. He tried to carry the moment off successfully; I will give him so much credit. But it was asking too much of his curiosity, and there was no mistaking the eager glitter which lighted his glance as he saw within his reach this article which a moment before he had probably regarded as lost forever.