Before he could escape he had to give his father's name and address, and promise that he would pay for the damage, after which he joined the clown (who had strolled on) with a heavy heart, for he knew that that business would stop all his pocket-money for years after he was grown up! He even ventured to reproach his friend: 'I shan't sneak of you, of course, he said, 'but you know _you_ did it!' The clown's only answer to this was a reproof for telling wicked stories. At last they passed a confectioner's, and the clown suddenly remembered that he was hungry, so they went in, and he borrowed sixpence from Tommy, which he spent in buns. He ate them all himself slowly, and was so very quiet and well-behaved all the time that Tommy hoped he was sobering down. They had gone a little way from the shop when he found that the clown was eating tarts. 'You might give me one,' said Tommy; and the clown, after looking over his shoulder, actually gave him all he had left, filling his pocket with them, in fact. 'I never saw you buy them,' he said wonderingly, which the clown said was very peculiar; and just then an attendant came up breathlessly. 'You forgot to pay for those tarts,' she said. The clown replied that he never took pastry. She insisted that they were gone, and he must have taken them. 'It wasn't me, please,' said the clown; 'it was this little boy done it. Why, he's got a jam tart in his pocket now. Where's a policeman?' Tommy was so thunderstruck by this treachery that he could say nothing. It was only what he might have expected, for had not the clown served the pantaloon exactly the same the night before? But that did not make the situation any the funnier now, particularly as the clown made such a noise that two real policemen came hurrying up. Tommy did not wait for them. No one held him, and he ran away at the top of his speed. What a nightmare sort of run it was!--the policemen chasing him, and the clown urging them on at the top of his voice. Everybody he passed turned round and ran after him too. Still he kept ahead. He was surprised to find how fast he could run, and all at once he remembered that he was running the opposite way from home. Quick as thought he turned up the first street he came to, hoping to throw them off the scent and get home by a back way. For the moment he thought he had got rid of them; but just as he stopped to take breath, they all came whooping and hallooing round the corner after him; and he had to scamper on, panting, and sobbing, and staggering, and almost out of his mind with fright. If he could only get home first, and tell his mother! But they were gaining on him, and the clown was leading and roaring with delight as he drew closer and closer. He came to a point where two roads met. It was round another corner, and they could not see him. He ran down one, and, to his immense relief, found they had taken the other. He was saved, for his house was quite near now.