Similarly, to pry open the back door would require the services of a jimmy (whatever that might be).

Moreover, there were such things as burglar alarms—­inventions of the devil!

On the other hand, unless his senses deceived him, there were police officers in plenty only a fence or two away; and the back of this house boasted a fire-escape.  By inverting a convenient ash-can and standing on it, an active man might possibly, if sufficiently desperate, manage to jump a vertical yard (more or less), catch the lowermost grating of the fire-escape, and draw himself up.

In a thought P. Sybarite turned the galvanised iron cylinder bottom-up, clambered upon it, and on tiptoe sought to gauge the exact distance of the requisite leap.  But now the grating seemed to have receded at least three feet from its position as first judged—­to be hopelessly removed from the grasp of his yearning fingers.

Yet that mad attempt must be made.  Why die fighting when a broken neck would serve as well?

Gathering his slight person together, P. Sybarite crouched, quivered, jumped for glory and the Saints—­and all but brained himself on that impish and trickish grating.  Clutching it and kicking footloose, he was stunned by the wonder of many brilliant new-born constellations swirling round his poor head to the thunderous music of the spheres, as rendered by the ash-can which, displaced by the vigour of his acrobatics, had toppled over and was rolling and clattering hideously on the flagging.

In his terrified bosom P. Sybarite felt the heart of him turn to cold and clammy stone.

No clamour more infernal could well have been improvised, given similar circumstances and facilities as rude.  It seemed hours, rather than instants, that the damned thing wallowed and bellowed beneath him, raising a din to disturb all Christendom.  While, the moment it was still, the cries of the police pack belled clear and near at hand: 

“This way, b’ys!”

“There he is, the—­”

“Got ’im now—­”

“Halt or—!”

Another pistol shot!...

Glancing over shoulder, the hunted man caught a glimpse of uncouth shapes wriggling along a fence ridge several rods away.  No more than the barest glimpse, it served:  with a mighty heave and wriggle he breasted the lower platform, shifted a hand to the top of its railing, heaved himself up to a foothold, and swarmed up the iron ladder with an agility an ape might have envied.

But as he mounted, it grew momentarily more evident that the stage thunder manufactured by that wretched galvanised iron cylinder had, in fact, served him far from ill; reverberating from wall to wall within the hollow of the block, its dozen echoes diverted pursuit to as many quarters, luring the limbs of the law every way but the right one.  Nobody, it appeared, was alert enough to espy that fugacious shadow on the fire-ladder.  And in less than a brace of minutes P. Sybarite, at the top, was pulling himself gingerly over the lip of a stone coping.