no use your thinking o' running away, because
I can run too.' With that he entered the ham and beef shop, leaving
Jimmy outside alone on the pavement. Perhaps Jimmy would never have
thought of running away if the man had not suggested it; but he was so
frightened that he felt it would be better to do anything rather than go
with the policeman. You know that sometimes a boy does not stay to
consider what is really the best, and Jimmy did not stay to think now.
Whilst he saw Coote talking to the shopman in the white apron, through
the window, he suddenly turned to make a dash across the road.

'Look out!' cried a man, and Jimmy only just escaped being run over by a
one-horse omnibus. He dodged the horse, however, and running towards the
opposite pavement, he knocked against an old woman with a basket. The
basket grazed his left arm, and to judge by what she said he must have
hurt the woman a good deal. But Jimmy did not wait to hear all she had
to say; he only thought of getting away from Coote, and ran on and on
without the slightest notion where he was going. Up one street and down
another the boy ran, often looking behind to see whether he was being
followed, and at last stopping altogether, simply because he could not
run any farther. He sat down on the kerb-stone, and then he saw for the
first time that it had begun to rain quite fast.

It was a great relief to know that Coote must have taken a wrong
direction, for if the policeman had taken the right one he would have
caught Jimmy by this time. Still he did not intend to sit there many
minutes in case Coote should be following him after all, so a few
minutes later Jimmy got up again and walked on quickly.

He felt very miserable; it must be past his usual bed-time, and yet he
had nowhere to sleep. He wished he were safely at Chesterham; and he
made up his mind that he would never fall asleep in a waiting-room again
as long as he lived.

Until now Jimmy had been making his way along streets, but very soon he
saw that there were houses only on one side of the way. He had in fact
come to what looked, as well as he could see in the dark, like a small
common, with furze bushes growing on it, and a pond by the roadside.

But a little farther on, Jimmy fancied he heard a band playing, and then
he saw what appeared to be an enormous tent, and there were lights
burning near, and curious shadowy things which he could not make out at
all.

Jimmy was always an inquisitiv