“I’ll cut it, sir,” said Robinson, laying down his irons for a moment.

“How long shall you be, Jenny?” asked Mr. Miles.

“I shall have done by when your story is done,” replied she coolly.

Mr. Miles laughed.  “Well, Jenny,” said he, “I hadn’t walked far before I met Hazeltine.  ‘Have you got him?’ says he.  ‘Do I look like it?’ said I rather crustily.  Fancy a fool asking me whether I had got him!  So I told him all about it, and we walked back together.  By-and-by we met the other two just outside the gate.  Well, just as we were going in Tom Yates said, ’I say, suppose we look round the premises before we go to bed.’  We went softly round the house and what did we find but a window with the glass taken out; we poked about and we found a pair of shoes.  ‘Why, there’s some one in the house,’ says Tom Yates, ’as I’m a sinner.’  So we held a council of war.  Tom was to go into the kitchen, lock the door leading out, and ambush in the larder with his pistols; and we three were to go in by the front door and search the house.  Well, Hazeltine and I had got within a yard or two of it and the knave of trumps in the rear with a sword or something, when, by George! sir, the door began to open, and out slips a fellow quietly.  Long Hazy and I went at him, Hazy first.  Crack he caught Hazy on the head with a bludgeon, down went daddy-long-legs, and I got entangled in him, and the robber cut like the wind for the kitchen.  ‘Come on,’ shouted I to the honorable thingunibob, bother his name—­there—­the knave of trumps, and I pulled up Hazy but couldn’t wait for him, and after the beggar like mad.  Well, as I came near the kitchen-door I heard a small scrimmage, and back comes my man flying bludgeon in one hand and knife in the other, both whirling over his head like a windmill.  I kept cool, doubled my right, and put in a heavy one from the armpit; you know, Tom; caught him just under the chin, you might have heard his jaw crack a mile off; down goes my man on his back flat on the bricks, and his bludgeon rattled one way and his knife the other—­such a lark.  Oh! oh! oh! what are you doing, Robinson, you hurt me most confoundedly—­I won’t tell you any more.  So now he was down, in popped the knave of swords and fell on him, and Hazy came staggering in after and insulted him a bit and we bagged him.”

“And the other, sir,” asked Tom, affecting an indifferent tone, “he didn’t get off, I hope?”

“What other?” inquired Jenny.

“The other unfor—­the other rascal—­the burglar.”

“Why he never said there were two.”

“Y—­yes!—­he said they found their shoes.”

“No, he said he found a pair of shoes.”

“For all that you are wrong, Jenny, and he is right—­there were two; and, what is more, Tom Yates had got the other, threatening to blow out his brains if he moved, so down he sat on the dresser and took it quite easy and whistled a tune while we trussed the other beggar with his own bludgeon and our chokers.  Tom Yates says the cool one tumbled down from upstairs just as we drove our one in.  Tom let them try the door before he bounced out; then my one flung a chair at Tom’s head and cut back, Tom nailed the other and I floored mine.  Hurrah!”