a murderer might behave, but we did not
think he was one. He looked too old for these professions.

When the door was shut, he said--

"I ain't got much to say, young gemmen. It's only to ask was it you sent
this?"

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list.
Oswald and Dicky looked at each other.

"Did you send it?" said the old man again.

So then Dicky shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yes."

Oswald said, "How did you know and who are you?"

The old man got whiter than ever. He pulled out a piece of paper--it was
the greenish-grey piece we'd wrapped the Turk and chains in. And it had
a label on it that we hadn't noticed, with Dicky's name and address on
it. The new bat he got at Christmas had come in it.

[Illustration: WHEN THE DOOR WAS SHUT HE SAID, "I AIN'T GOT MUCH TO SAY,
YOUNG GEMMEN."]

"That's how I know," said the old man. "Ah, be sure your sin will find
you out."

"But who are you, anyway!" asked Oswald again.

"Oh, _I_ ain't nobody in particular," he said. "I'm only the father of
the pore gell as you took in with your cruel, deceitful, lying tricks.
Oh, you may look uppish, young sir, but I'm here to speak my mind, and
I'll speak it if I die for it. So now!"

"But we didn't send it to a girl," said Dicky. "We wouldn't do such a
thing. We sent it for a--for a----" I think he tried to say for a joke,
but he couldn't with the fiery way the old man looked at him--"for a
sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it
was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others."
Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to the old man. He
was rather afraid he might be.

"I never sent it to a girl," he said again.

"Ho," said the aged one. "An' who told you that there porter was a
single man? It was his wife--my pore gell--as opened your low parcel,
and she sees your lying list written out so plain on top, and, sez she
to me, 'Father,' says she, 'ere's a friend in need! All these good
things for us, and no name signed, so that we can't even say thank you.
I suppose it's some one knows how short we are just now, and hardly
enough to eat with coals the price they are,' says she to me. 'I do call
that kind and Christian,' says she, 'and I won't open not one of them
lovely parcels till Jim comes 'ome,' she says, 'and we'll enjoy the
pleasures of it together, all three of us,' says she. And when he came
home--we opened of them lovely par