e a period of
tedious explanations to be gone through before he was at liberty to
depart to the cosy little lunch for which his interior had been sighing
wistfully this long time past; but that he should be arrested had been
outside his calculations. Of course, he could put everything right
eventually; he could call witnesses to his character and the purity of
his intentions; but in the meantime the whole dashed business would be
in all the papers, embellished with all those unpleasant flippancies to
which your newspaper reporter is so prone to stoop when he sees half a
chance. He would feel a frightful chump. Chappies would rot him about it
to the most fearful extent. Old Brewster's name would come into it, and
he could not disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who liked
his name in the papers as little as possible, would be sorer than a
sunburned neck.

"No, I say, you know! I mean, I mean to say!"

"Pinched!" repeated the rather larger policeman.

"And annything ye say," added his slightly smaller colleague, "will be
used agenst ya 't the trial."

"And if ya try t'escape," said the first speaker, twiddling his club,
"ya'll getja block knocked off."

And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed
scenario, the two relapsed into silence. Officer Cassidy restored his
gum to circulation. Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his boots.

"But, I say," said Archie, "it's all a mistake, you know. Absolutely a
frightful error, my dear old constables. I'm not the lad you're after
at all. The chappie you want is a different sort of fellow altogether.
Another blighter entirely."

New York policemen never laugh when on duty. There is probably something
in the regulations against it. But Officer Donahue permitted the left
corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary muscular spasm
disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy's granite features, as a passing
breeze ruffles the surface of some bottomless lake.

"That's what they all say!" observed Officer Donahue.

"It's no use tryin' that line of talk," said Officer Cassidy. "Babcock's
squealed."

"Sure. Squealed 's morning," said Officer Donahue.

Archie's memory stirred vaguely.

"Babcock?" he said. "Do you know, that name seems familiar to me,
somehow. I'm almost sure I've read it in the paper or something."

"Ah, cut it out!" said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly. The two constables
exchanged a glance of austere disapproval. This h