“Ah indeed!—­just so—­you thought maybe we’d heard something of some children as had strayed—­strayed; not been decoyed away—­oh not at all—­away from their home.  And of course, young man, you’d heard nothing.  You, nor those that sent you, didn’t know nothing of this here, I suppose?” and Boyds unfolded a yellow paper lying on the table and held it up before Tim’s face.  “This here is new to you, no doubt?”

Tim shook his head.  The yellow paper with big black letters told him nothing.  Even the big figures, “L20 Reward,” standing alone at the top, had no meaning for him.  “I can’t read, sir,” he said, growing redder than before.

“Oh indeed! and who was it then that told you to come here about the children to ask the way, so that you could take them home, you know, and get the reward all nice and handy?  You thought maybe you’d get it straight away, and that we’d send ’em home for you—­was that what father or mother thought?”

Tim looked up, completely puzzled.

“I don’t know anything about a reward,” he said, “and I haven’t no father or mother.  Di——­” but here he stopped short.  “Diana told me to come to you,” he was going to have said, when it suddenly struck him that the gipsy girl had bid him beware of mentioning any names.

“Who?” said the superintendent sharply.

“I can’t say,” said Tim.  “It was a friend o’ mine—­that’s all I can say—­as told me to come here.”

“A friend, eh?  I’m thinking we’ll have to know some more about some of your friends before we’re done with you.  And where is these same children, then?  You can tell us that anyway!”

“No,” said Tim, beginning to take fright, “I can’t.  They’d be afeared—­dreadful—­if they saw one o’ your kind.  I’ll find my own way to Sandle’ham if you can’t tell it me,” and he turned to go.

But the policeman called Simpkins, at a sign from his superior, caught hold of him.

“Not so fast, young man, not so fast,” said Boyds.  “You’ll have to tell us where these there children are afore you’re off.”

“I can’t—­indeed I can’t—­they’d be so frightened,” said Tim.  “Let me go, and I’ll try to get them to come back here with me—­oh do let me go!”

But Simpkins only held him the faster.

“Shut him up in there for a bit,” said Boyds, pointing to a small inner room opening into the one where they were,—­“shut him in there till he thinks better of it,” and Simpkins was preparing to do so when Tim turned to make a last appeal.  “Don’t lock me up whatever you do,” he said, clasping his hands in entreaty; “they’ll die of fright if they’re left alone.  I’d rather you’d go with me nor leave them alone.  Yes, I’ll show you where they are if you’ll let me run on first so as they won’t be so frightened.”

Simpkins glanced at Boyds—­he was a kinder man than the superintendent and really sharper, though much less conceited.  He was half inclined to believe in Tim.