“You’ll waste your time,” said Mr. Daddles, “there’s no one left in there but the policemen,—­and you can’t wake them up from here.”

“P’licemen?” queried the fat man.

“Whatcher talkin’ about?” asked the man with the pitchfork.

“I’m talking about the two policemen who are getting their eight hours in the library,” Mr. Daddles replied, “Poor things!  I hope we didn’t disturb them.”

“Don’t yer believe him, Eb,” said another man, “it’s some gum game.”

“Look here,” I said, “this is all a mistake.  We’re not burglars.  This house—­”

“Yes, we know all about that,” said a man, “we’ve heard this feller tell all about his Uncle Alfred Peabody’s house.  It’s a fust-rate story,—­only Uncle Alfred’s is next door.  This is T. Parker Littlefield’s, an’ you know it, too.”

“I’m afraid we did strike the wrong house, Sam,” said Mr. Daddles, “you see—­”

“You betcher struck the wrong house,—­you’re right there, fast enough,” said a little man, who was hopping up and down in his excitement.  He was the only one of them who was not holding one of us.  He had short, paint-brush whiskers, and I remembered him as the man in the shanty,—­the one whom Mr. Daddles called “black-hearted Gregory the Gauger.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yerself,” said he, “leadin’ boys into crime!”

“Do you mean me?” asked Mr. Daddles.

“Yas—­I mean you,—­in the white pants,” he replied, looking with great scorn at Mr. Daddles’s duck trousers, “I’ve heard how you perfessional crooks git boys to climb up on water spouts an’ let yer in.  I seen yer jest after yer passed my place, an’ I knowed what yer was up to.”

“Well, you are quite wrong,—­you’re way off,” said Mr. Daddles, very seriously.  “I don’t suppose it will do any good, but it will save you people from making yourselves ridiculous.  It’s all true, —­what I told you.  I thought we were getting into Mr. Peabody’s house, and he is my uncle.  See here,—­do you think we look like burglars?”

“Can’t tell what yer look like,” said a man, “’we caught yer in—­”

“In partiseps criminy,” said Gregory the Gauger, “that’s what it was.  An’ whatever you look like, you’ll look different tomorrer mornin’.  I don’t cal’late you know anything about breakin’ an’ enterin’ Dr. Bigelow’s last night?”

“No, we don’t.  We weren’t here last night.”

“Course not, course not.  Nor about bustin’ into the Ellis place last Sat’day night?”

“No, nor about that either.”

“Course not!”

The men who were holding Ed Mason had been seized with the idea of searching him.  So they made Ed turn out his pockets in the hope of finding some stolen goods.  They examined the jack-knife, cork-stopper with three fish-hooks in it, and lead sinker which they found, and argued whether this was plunder from the house or not.  Then they started to search the rest of us, and we all had to empty our pockets.  Not until they came to the pound-cake, in Jimmy Toppan’s pocket, did they find anything of consequence, and as he admitted that he had taken that from the house, they felt that they had made a real discovery.  They handed it over to the pitchfork man.