In three quick steps I had crossed to the sleeping man's side and was shaking him. I still kept my eyes on the slowly retreating figure of the thief as he made his apparently diffident way up through the square. I had often heard of those street harpies known as "lush-dips," those professional pickpockets who prey on the wayside inebriate. But never before had I seen one at work. "Quick! Wake up!" I cried, with a desperate shake at the sleeper's shoulder. "You've been robbed!" The next move of that little midnight drama was an unexpected and startling one. Instead of being confronted by the disputatious maunderings of a half-wakened sleeper, as I expected, I was suddenly and firmly caught by the arm and jerked bodily into the seat beside him. "You've been robbed!" I repeated, as I felt that firm grip haul me seatward. "Shut up!" said a calm and very wide-awake voice, quite close to my ear. I struggled to tear my arm away from the hand that still clung to it. "But you've been _robbed_!" I expostulated. I noticed that his own gaze was already directed northward, toward where the blue-clad figure still moved aimlessly on under the arc lamps. "How do you know that?" he demanded. I was struck by his resolute and rather authoritative voice. "Why, I saw it with my own eyes! And there goes the man who did it!" I told him, pointing northward. He jerked down my hand and swung around on me. "Watch that man!" he said, almost fiercely. "But for heaven's sake _keep still_!" "What does this mean?" I naturally demanded. He swept me with one quick glance. Yet he looked more at my clothes, I fancy, than at my face. My tailor seemed to be quite satisfactory to him. "Who are you?" he asked. I took my time in answering, for I was beginning to resent his repeated note of superiority. "My name, if that's what you mean, happens to be the uneuphonious but highly respectable one of Kerfoot--Witter Kerfoot." "No, no," he said with quick impatience. "_What_ are you?" "I'm nothing much, except a member of a rather respectable club, and a man who doesn't sleep overly well." His eyes were still keenly watching the slowly departing figure. My flippancy seemed to have been lost on him. His muscular young hand suddenly tightened on my sleeve. "By God, sir, you _can_ help me!" he cried, under his breath. "You must! I've a right to call on you, as a decent citizen, as--" "Who are you?" I interrupted, quite myself by this time. "I'm Lieutenant Palmer," he absently admitted, all the while eying the moving figure. "And I've got to get that man, or it'll cost me a court-martial. I've _got_ to get him. Wait! Sit back here without moving. Now watch what he does!" I saw the thief drop into an empty bench, glance, down at his time-piece, look carelessly about, and then, lean back with his legs crossed. Nothing more happened. "Well," I inquired, "what's the game?"