“Come on, Jim,” said Rodney. “You’ll be safe, in our house. I’m glad you didn’t do it, though. Tell you what, if it had been me, I’d ha’ broke loose. How’d you ever manage to do it? Tell us----” “I will,” said Jim, as he followed his new friend, but a sudden change had come over him. His step was light and springy, and his face was bright with new hope. He had watched there in the raw, chilly morning until he had grown almost desperate. Not that he had wished himself back in the House of Refuge, but that he had felt very tired, very hungry, and altogether uncertain what to do next, or where to go. “Mother!” shouted Rodney, with a sort of effort not to shout quite so loud: “He’s from Randall’s Island! He got away last night, and the cops are after him. Millie’s going to bring him some of Tom’s clothes----” “Rodney!” she exclaimed. “Why, how did he get here?--~Now, you keep still and let him tell me all about it.” That was precisely what Rod was very willing to do, and Jim was glad enough to tell them everything. “O, Rod!” said his mother. “What if it had been you!--His uncle ought to be put there, himself,--and what could his aunt have been thinking of----” “’Twasn’t her fault,” said Jim, “and the money was really gone. Somebody took it, but I didn’t, and Uncle John may not have been so much to blame. He never liked me anyhow----” “He ought not to have sent you to jail,” said Mrs. Nelson, positively. “And I suppose they treated you awfully. Did they flog you much?” “No, they didn’t,” said Jim. “They never flog anybody. It’s the best place in the world for loads of those boys. They get a chance to learn something and they have to behave themselves. What I mean is that I didn’t do anything to go there for, and I didn’t belong there. They’re the best kind of men for the boys that ought to be there.” He really came up with a good deal of energy to the defence of the House of Refuge and its management, but he was tremendously in earnest in his assertion that he would not go back there again. He had hardly completed his wonderful story of escape, before the door of the kitchen opened, half stealthily, and they heard the voice of Mrs. Kirby: “Go right in, Millie. Don’t say a word. Don’t speak about him. Somebody else might be there and hear you. Don’t you run any risk of anybody’s knowing what they’re for. If they don’t fit him, I can alter them----” “Come right in, Mrs. Kirby,” called out Mrs. Nelson, but Millie was in first, with her arms full of coats, trousers and other matters, that had nothing grey about them. “That’s the checker!” shouted Rod. “That old blue. It’s patched, some, but it’ll do first-rate. He won’t look like the same fellow. Come on, Jim. Come into the front room and put ’em on. Mother, you tell ’em just how it was.--Guess the cops won’t get him out of our house.”