; but they
gave rise to much unpleasantness, and were to be avoided when possible.

As it happened, Dick was not put to the necessity of making a choice
to-night. In the midst of his cogitations he felt himself seized from
behind in a pair of long, strong arms. With the quick instinct of a
wrongdoer he suspected evil, and kicked sharply back ward at the shins of
the enemy.

'Le' go! You le' me go, see!' gasped the boy, struggling and fighting
fiercely.

Resistance was quite useless. Dick was dragged through the gate, and up
to the house. The door was opened, and he was bundled unceremoniously
into the kitchen. Then Ephraim Shine--for it was the superintendent who
had fallen upon Dick in the darkness--thrust his sparsely-whiskered,
leathery face into the well-lighted room, and said shortly:

'Your boy, ma'am!'

Shine withdrew instantly, closing the door noiselessly after him, and
left Dick flushed and furious.

'He didn't take me,' he cried. 'I was comin' home, an' he grabbed me just
outside there--the beast!

Dick stopped short, suddenly conscious of the presence of visitors. Mrs.
Hardy was sitting opposite his mother by the wide fireplace--the tall,
white-haired gentlewoman in whose society he always felt himself
transformed suddenly into a sort of saintly fellowship with the
remarkably gentlemanly little boys whose acquaintance he made in the
books provided by the chapel library. At the table sat Gable, the grey,
chubby-faced third-class scholar whom Joel Ham had forgiven because of
his extreme youth. The old man had a circular slab of bread and jam in
his left hand, and was grinning fraternally at Dick. There was a third
visitor, a stranger, a brown-haired, brown-skinned, bony young man,
dressed after the manner of a drover. He had a small moustache, and a
grave, taking face. He looked like a bushranger, Dick thought admiringly.

'This is Richard, Henry,' said Mrs. Hardy.

'You don't know me, eh, Coppertop?' said the young man, taking the boy's
hand.

'Harry Hardy,' said Dick at random.

'Well, that's a good enough guess, young fellow

Dick fell back quietly. It was, he felt, a moment when an air of sadness
and a retiring disposition would be likely to be most becoming in
him--and most effective. He declined his mother's invitation to supper
with such meekness that the little woman found it difficult to hide her
concern. Could she have peeped into the drive of the Mount of Gold, where
was scrap-food e