“Name?” he snapped to Mr. Daddles.

“Richard Hendricks.”

“Why!” exclaimed Ed Mason, “I thought your name was Daddles!”

“Hear that? hear that?” put in Gregory the Gauger, “that’s his Elias!”

“No, it’s not an alias,—­in the sense that you mean.  It’s a nickname.  There is no use in going through this again.  What I told you in the first place is all true,—­and we’ll prove it to you in the morning.  I know, or used to know, a number of people here.  I know Mr. Littlefield, my uncle’s neighbor, but if he’s gone away, that won’t do any good.  But I know an old lady down the street here, who lets rooms, and sells sweet-peas, and painted shells, and things.  Isn’t there such a woman?”

“What’s her name?  S’pose there is,—­what of it?”

“I can’t recall her name now.  She could tell you who I am.  But if you’re determined to lock us up until the morning you might as well do it.  We’re all tired out, and we’ve got to sleep somewhere.  I warn you that you’re making a mistake and that we’re not the burglars you are looking for.  We came in here this afternoon in a boat, as I told you.”

“I told you they come in a boat,” said a man.

“What was the name of the boat?” asked the constable.

“The Hoppergrass.”

“The—­what’s-that-you-say?”

“Hoppergrass.”

“I never heard of no such boat.”

Mr. Daddles was silent.

“Where’s the boat, now?”

“I don’t know,—­she sailed away.”

The constable laughed.

“You needn’t think you can play it over me, with any such story as that, young feller.”

Justin had now returned from down stairs, and the constable ordered him and another man to conduct us all below.

“Put ’em in number four an’ five.”

“Number four an’ five it is!”

So we descended the stairs.  Below, there was a brick-lined corridor, with three cells on each side.  At the end a kerosene lamp hung in a bracket on the wall.  This was the only light.

“Hullo!” said a cheerful voice, “how long did you get?  Life-sentence?”

It was the man who called himself Sprague.  His banjo stood against the wall just outside his cell, and under the lamp.

“No,” said Mr. Daddles, “we’re awaiting our trial in the morning, the same as you.”

“What was your crime, anyway?  Whistling?”

Justin shook his head at the man in the cell.

“You fellers better look out,—­all on ye,” said he.  “Eb’s pretty mad.  An’ he’s got a bad temper when he gets riled, I tell you.  An’ folks are all stirred up about this burglin’ business.”

He looked at us doubtfully, and shook his head again.  The other man—­he was the tall, silent one, who had led me along the road-opened the last cell on the right and told Ed Mason and me to go in.  Mr. Daddles and Jimmy were put in a cell across the corridor.  The tall man vanished upstairs, leaving us all locked in.  Justin was turning down the light.