"Then send for the police, send for the police, and I'll go quiet. If you ain't no realler than them cats I'm done. Send for the police. I'll go quiet. One thing, there'd not be room for 'arf them cats in no cell as ever _I_ see." He ran his fingers through his hair, which was short, and his eyes wandered wildly round the roomful of cats. "Burglar," said Jane, kindly and softly, "if you didn't like cats, what did you come here for?" [Illustration: "'IT'S A JUDGMENT,' HE SAID. 'OH, 'ERE'S A THING TO 'APPEN TO A CHAP!'"] "Send for the police," was the unfortunate criminal's only reply. "I'd rather you would--honest, I'd rather." "I daren't," said Jane; "and, besides, I've no one to send. I hate the police. I wish he'd never been born." "You've a feeling 'art, miss," said the burglar. "But them cats is really a little bit too thick." "Look here," said Jane. "I won't call the police. And I am quite a real little girl, though I talk older than the kind you have met before when you've been doing your burglings. And they _are_ real cats--and they want real milk--and--didn't you say the cow was like somebody's Daisy that you used to know? Well, then, perhaps you know how to milk cows?" "Perhaps I does," was the burglar's cautious rejoinder. "Then," said Jane, "if you will _only_ milk ours, you don't know how we shall always love you." The burglar replied that loving was all very well. "If those cats only had a good, long, wet, thirsty drink of milk," Jane went on, with eager persuasion, "they'll lie down and go to sleep as likely as not, and then the police won't come back. But if they go on mewing like this he will, and then I don't know what'll become of us or you either." This argument seemed to decide the criminal. Jane fetched the wash-bowl from the sink and he prepared to milk the cow. At this instant boots were heard on the stairs. "It's all up," said the man, desperately. "This 'ere's a plant. _'Ere's_ the police." He made as if to open the window and leap from it. "It's all right, I tell you," whispered Jane, in anguish. "I'll say you're a friend of mine, or the good clergyman called in, or my uncle, or _anything_--only do, do, do milk the cow. Oh, _don't_ go--oh--oh, thank goodness, it's only the boys!" It was; and their entrance had awakened Anthea, who, with her brothers, now crowded through the doorway. The man looked about him as a rat looks round a trap. "This is a friend of mine," said Jane. "He's just called in, and he's going to milk the cow for us. _Isn't_ it good and kind of him?" She winked at the others, and though they did not understand they played up loyally. "How do?" said Cyril. "Very glad to meet you. Don't let us interrupt the milking."