The boy, all the way to his home, was tremulously asking what would be done to him, but his captor smoked away in dignified silence, more terrible to the prisoner than the most voluble of threats. At length the great oracle spoke, and gave the boy to understand that the nature and duration of his punishment would depend very much upon himself—if he agreed to tell how the robbery had been accomplished, and all other particulars, his punishment would probably be extremely light. This gracious concession gave great comfort to the boy, who instantly promised to keep back nothing. They had then arrived at the house in Buccleuch Street. It was a poor hovel of a room, both damp and dark, being on the ground floor. A woman who opened the door was promptly introduced to M^cSweeny as the boy’s mother. The boy whispered to her for a moment, and then led M^cSweeny to the fireplace. A small fire burned in the grate, and on that fire was a pot of broth. The boy lifted down the pot on to the hearth, and, handing an old ladle to M^cSweeny, told him to “take them out.” “What a hiding-place!” was M^cSweeny’s inward comment. “The young scoundrel’s as clever as if he had been wan of my bairns all his life. To think of him making broth of jewels!—begorra, he deserves a prize for fine cookery.” As he made these comments M^cSweeny began to rake up the contents of the pot, but found no trace of the magic jewels. “What do ye mane, ye young spalpeen?” he cried at last, in terrible tones, to the boy and his quaking mother. “Didn’t you say they were here, in the pot?” “Yes—that’s them,” said the boy, stopping his whimpering to point to a heap of beef bones, with some shreds of meat still adhering to them, which M^cSweeny had removed one by one from the pot. “What?” The thought was too humiliating—too horrifying; and M^cSweeny could find voice for only the one word. “That’s them,” repeated the boy, touching the steaming bones, “and I’d never have taken them, only the servant said they were no use.” “It’s jewels I’m after!” shouted M^cSweeny in a great rage. “Jewels! £200 worth of jewels!” “Jewels? I never saw them,” cried the boy, drying up his tears with marvellous alacrity. “You said bones, I thought—at least it was the only thing I ever took, and thought you meant them.” All this was dreadful to M^cSweeny, and yet it was so simply and naturally spoken, that he could not for a moment doubt the truthfulness of either. With a great show of bluster and official activity he searched the whole of the little hovel, but, of course, found no trace of jewellery of any kind; indeed, the page-boy protested loudly that he had never seen his master with jewellery in his possession, and so could not possibly have stolen it.