the top step and swung
round, plucked one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly head
as he came at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and I heard
shouting and footsteps running from all parts. I made a mad rush
for the refreshment place, and there was a man in white like a man
cook, who took up the chase. I made one last desperate turn and
found myself among lamps and ironmongery. I went behind the counter
of this, and waited for my cook, and as he bolted in at the head of
the chase, I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went, and I
crouched down behind the counter and began whipping off my clothes
as fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers, shoes were all right,
but a lambswool vest fits a man like a skin. I heard more men
coming, my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the counter,
stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another dash for
it, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile.

"'This way, policeman!' I heard someone shouting. I found myself in
my bedstead storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness of
wardrobes. I rushed among them, went flat, got rid of my vest after
infinite wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared,
as the policeman and three of the shopmen came round the corner.
They made a rush for the vest and pants, and collared the trousers.
'He's dropping his plunder,' said one of the young men. 'He _must_
be somewhere here.'

"But they did not find me all the same.

"I stood watching them hunt for me for a time, and cursing my
ill-luck in losing the clothes. Then I went into the refreshment-room,
drank a little milk I found there, and sat down by the fire to
consider my position.

"In a little while two assistants came in and began to talk over
the business very excitedly and like the fools they were. I heard a
magnified account of my depredations, and other speculations as to
my whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming again. The insurmountable
difficulty of the place, especially now it was alarmed, was to get
any plunder out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see if
there was any chance of packing and addressing a parcel, but I
could not understand the system of checking. About eleven o'clock,
the snow having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and a
little warmer than the previous one, I decided that the Emporium
was hopeless, and went out again, exasperated at my want of
success, with only the vaguest plans of action in my mind."

CH