increased his weight
upon the pedals.

The officers of the law, cheered as by a greeting from Santa Claus
himself, responded with an equally hearty Merry Christmas.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

VIII

At three o'clock The Hopper reached Happy Hill Farm, knocked as before at
the kitchen door, and was admitted by Humpy.

"Wot ye got now?" snarled the reformed yeggman.

"He's gone and done ut ag'in!" wailed Mary, as she spied the basket.

"I sure done ut, all right," admitted The Hopper good-naturedly, as he set
the basket on the table where a few hours earlier he had deposited Shaver.
"How's the kid?"

Grudging assurances that Shaver was asleep and hostile glances directed at
the mysterious basket did not disturb his equanimity.

Humpy was thwarted in an attempt to pry into the contents of the basket by
a tart reprimand from The Hopper, who with maddening deliberation drew
forth the two glazes, found that they had come through the night's
vicissitudes unscathed, and held them at arm's length, turning them about
in leisurely fashion as though lost in admiration of their loveliness.
Then he lighted his pipe, seated himself in Mary's rocker, and told his
story.

It was no easy matter to communicate to his irritable and contumelious
auditors the sense of Muriel's charm, or the reasonableness of her request
that he commit burglary merely to assist her in settling a family row.
Mary could not understand it; Humpy paced the room nervously, shaking his
head and muttering. It was their judgment, stated with much frankness,
that if he had been a fool in the first place to steal the child, his
character was now blackened beyond any hope by his later crimes. Mary wept
copiously; Humpy most annoyingly kept counting upon his fingers as he
reckoned the "time" that was in store for all of them.

"I guess I got into ut an' I guess I'll git out," remarked The Hopper
serenely. He was disposed to treat them with high condescension, as
incapable of appreciating the lofty philosophy of life by which he was
sustained. Meanwhile, he gloated over the loot of the night.

"Them things is wurt' mints; they's more valible than di'mon's, them
things is! Only eddicated folks knows about 'em. They's fer emp'rors and
kings t' set up in their palaces, an' men goes nutty jes' hankerin' fer
'em. The pigtails made 'em thousand o' years back, an' th' secret died
with 'em. They ain't never goin' to be no more jugs like them settin'