But “pleasures are like poppies spread,” and poppies, as everybody knows, contain a deal of poison. These three conquerors were in turn to be conquered—the fate of all. They began to feel queer, as if the wild war-dance had not agreed with them. They got worse, and another bathe was proposed; but their clothes were scarcely off, and their toes in the sea, when they fell down writhing and howling. It was a clear case of cramp. A great crowd gathered about them; rescue-men distinguished themselves in hauling the three boys out of a full inch of water; and they were borne howling to the baths. They roared while they had breath, and then lay limp and insensible. A doctor summoned in haste placed his hand on one of the stomachs—he must have been a family man—a pump was sent for, but before it arrived they had each begun to relieve themselves. Still they were very ill, and it was quite clear to the doctor that they had been poisoned. As they said nothing of the sugared cake they had devoured, but admitted that they had eaten a pennyworth of gingerbread among them, the poor seller of the gingerbread was pounced upon by the police, and lugged off to prison as a wholesale poisoner. The three hapless victims being quite unfit for removal, a telegram was sent to their parents, stating that they had been poisoned, but were expected to recover. The effect of this message upon the parents of the two companions was alarming, but Coglin it only enraged. At first he stood horrified like the rest, but then, guessing something like the truth, he burst into a fit of passion, and said that it was all Burfoot’s doing. His mode of reasoning was this—Burfoot had been the cause of him having to prepare the poisoned cake; through him preparing that cake his own boy had been poisoned; therefore Burfoot, in addition to his past crimes, was guilty of a deliberate attempt to murder the baker’s son. What reprisal, what punishment, could be too great for such a wretch?