Kindness is more overpowering than cruelty. The poor baker staggered, trembled, and then fairly broke down, and was then hurried into the house, planted down by a rousing fire, and there forced to sit at ease, while the stout baker hastened to pile before him half the eatables in the house. While thus busy diving in and out the room as a means of concealing his own emotion, Borland managed to draw from his broken-down visitor an account of his misfortunes, and the state of things in his home; and then he quietly slipped out of the room, roused his wife out of bed, and sent her off in that direction with a bundle and a basket, which she and the servant girl could scarce carry between them. Then he got a pair of boots and a coat and muffler for Mossman, and the two set out to search for Johnny. Borland advised that they should go to the Police Office first, but that Mossman would not hear of, declaring that that was the last place Johnny would go near. When they had spent an hour in the streets they went to Hill Place in full hope that the boy would be there before them. They found some appearance of comfort in the house, but the poor mother was in tears, and the cause of her grief was explained in a few words— “Johnny said that if he was away there would be ane less to eat, and he said he would run away and be a sailor. He’s away now, and we’ll maybe never see him again.” “I never thought of that,” gasped Mossman, with a sinking heart. “One less to eat—he’s been craiking aboot that for weeks. We’ll never see him again;” and then in that relieved household there was more of tears than mirth or rejoicing. “If I had only gone myself!” the father cried in unsparing self-reproach. “If I had only known an hour or two earlier,” said the kind-hearted master baker. But the mother was most inconsolable. “I made him gang—if it hadna been for me he would have been here yet!” she sobbed. “I have done it all.” “Tuts, the laddie is not out o’ the world surely,” said her husband, with more lightness than he really felt. “I’ve often heard him speak of trying to find out his uncle, who is a fisherman in Kirkcaldy, and of learning under him. Have patience for a day or two, and we’ll hear of him all right.” They waited the day or two, but Johnny was as effectually hidden from them as if he had been buried alive. On the Monday morning he had been placed at the bar of the Police Court, and, when asked if he had taken the loaves in the manner described, said simply that he had, but had never thought of taking them till he opened the window to let out the cat. The magistrate thought for a little, and spoke of sending him to a reformatory, but as there was a difficulty in having no parents to fall back on for the cost of maintenance, he contented himself with a sentence of three days’ imprisonment, and a warning to the terrible burglar not to be seen there again or it would be worse for him.