" he exclaimed; and he did so at a run.

"Halt!"--it was a man in a neat gray uniform and gilt buttons who spoke
this time; and Jack halted just as the fleeing man vanished into a
crowd on one of the broad walks.

"He's got my dollar!"

"Tell me what it is, quick!" said the policeman, with a sudden
expression of interest.

Jack almost spluttered as he related how the fellow had collected the
fine; but the man in gray only shook his head.

"I thought I saw him putting up something," he said. "It's well he
didn't get your pocket-book, too! He won't show himself here again
to-night. He's safe by this time."

"Do you know him?" asked Jack, greatly excited; but more than a little
in dread of the helmet-hat, buttons, and club.

"Know him? 'Jimmy the Sneak?' Of course I do. He's only about two
weeks out of Sing Sing. It won't be long before he's back there again.
When did you come to town? What's your name? Where'd you come from?
Where are you staying? Do you know anybody in town?"

He had a pencil and a little blank-book, and he rapidly wrote out
Jack's answers.

"You'll get your eyes open pretty fast, at this rate," he said.
"That's all I want of you, now. If I lay a hand on Jimmy, I'll know
where to find you. You'd better go home. If any other thief asks you
for fifty cents, you call for the nearest policeman. That's what we're
here for."

"A whole dollar gone, and nothing to show for it!" groaned Jack, as he
walked away. "Only three dollars and a few cents left! I'll walk all
the way up to the Hotel Dantzic, instead of paying five cents for a car
ride. I'll have to save money now."

He felt more kindly toward all the policemen he met, and he was glad
there were so many of them.

"The police at Central Park," he remarked to himself, "and that fellow
at the Battery, were all in gray, and the street police wear blue; but
they're a good-looking set of men. I hope they will nab Jimmy the
Sneak and get back my dollar for me."

The farther he went, however, the clearer became his conviction that
dollars paid to thieves seldom come back; and that an evening walk of
more than three miles over the stone sidewalks of New York is a long
stroll for a very tired and somewhat homesick country boy. He cared
less and less, all the way, how strangely and how splendidly the
gas-lights and the electric lights lit up the tall buildings.

"One light's white," he said, "and the other's yellowish, and that's