The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-15

tod as how you calls yourself a detective
and you're the son of a hearl NV sakesl
don't know what things are a-coming to!
We shall soon have the Prince of Wales
a-sweeping of crossing! You look like a
common slop, you do
1t strikes me that it's a common slop
you want, my man. Am to send for one?''
Go on! don't mind! There's only my
own words again me- and they're not evil
dence. Besides-you put me in the dock.
and I'll say all I've got to say and that'lI
make someone look little funny"
The man hesitated. He was evidently di-
vided between two desires, a desire to re-
lieve his mind-it was plain that some
thing Of a most unusual sort was on his
mind-and a desire for his own safety.
Finally he threw discretion to the winds he
relieved his mind.
I've been readying the place month and
more, and no end of trouble I've had to do
it. But when do thing / like to do it
We'll; I'm as good a tradesman as there is
in the profesh. though L say it myself, so
don't you go and forget it, 1t amt all skit-
ties, crib-cracking ain it's fair haru work.
Well, last night 1 put it up. 1 got in all
right, and i did my little business, what I'd
got to do, all right, and 1 never so much
as upset rat. 1 was going away, through
the window Of a little room what had got
white walls, what I'd come through, when
l sees upon the table bottle and a glass.
So | douses my glim, and L puts down my
bag, and l has a sup. If you'll believe me,
guvnor, as l was standing there in the dark
ness, just as l was raising the glass to my
lips, a bright light shone into the room,
like a halo like, on the wall, and there was
4;
al me. 1t was all gone in a moment, him
and the light and all, but it had been there
quite long enough for me- didn't want to
stop to do talking, so L catches up my
bag, and I cuts my lucky"
Drawing the back of his hand across his
lips the fellow looked at Mr. Champnen as
if defying contradiction.
do you expect me to believe, my man.,
that Lord George Carman actually detected
you in the act of committing burglary on
his own premises. yet made no attempt to
stop you?"
Il wouldn't have minded his doing that
so much-I take some stopping, 1 debut
that would have been fair and above board
and all in the way of business, like: but he
done worse than that by chalks When
gets back to my own little place, l opens
my bag, to have a look at my earnings,
and help me, you might have
knocked me down with feather! I'd filled
the bag with my own hands, pretty nigh
chock of diamond jewels, and such like, and
when l came to reckon it up, well, there!
you take and have squint at it yourself,
guvnor, and tell me what you think of it!
Here is the blooming bag"
Placing the bag which he had been carry
ing on the table. the man opened it for Mr..
ChampnelPs inspection. 1t certainly con-
tanned rather a curious collection, hardly of
the kind which the average burglar might
be expected to covet.
There you are Did you ever see any
thing like it? Crusts of bread, Jumps of
dripping, bits of scrap meat, old noggins
of cheese-like as if I was some blooming
tramp and had been cadging for a meal.
Amt that nice sort Of thing to fetch away
from a crib what 1 had been readying for
a month and more?"
Am 1 to understand you to say that some
one in Azalea villa took out what you had
placed in the bag and put these things in it
instead?"
"You amt to understand nothing of the
sort; you're to understand that the blessed
bags was snapped. This amt unlike my
bag but it amt my bag, as l see only too
well when it was too late. That there
sneaking old rooster, and so I called him to
his face-Lord George Carman he calls him
self-had nicked my bag and put this here,
with this musty-fusty muck inside, instead
of it. 1 thought that little job would set
me up for year and more-there was such
lovely things 1 put inside my bag. I know
what they corst. And when 1 did see what
l had brought home 1 could have cried.
Gar on! If I was mob, s'help me, James, l
wouldn't play poor, struggling, hard
working bloke a trick like that"
The fellows disgust had a tragic as well
as a comic side, but the Hon. Augustus
Champnell only laughed.