this low way of business,' he said, when Noel said
something about the things he had turned out of his pockets. 'It's
a great come-down to a man like me. But, if I must be caught, it's
something to be caught by brave young heroes like you. My stars! How you
did bolt into the room,--"Surrender, and up with your hands!" You might
have been born and bred to the thief-catching.'

Oswald is sorry if it was mean, but he could not own up just then that
he did not think there was any one in the study when he did that brave
if rash act. He has told since.

'And what made you think there was any one in the house?' the robber
asked, when he had thrown his head back, and laughed for quite half a
minute. So we told him. And he applauded our valour, and Alice and H.
O. explained that they would have said 'Surrender,' too, only they were
reinforcements. The robber ate some of the chestnuts--and we sat and
wondered when Father would come home, and what he would say to us for
our intrepid conduct. And the robber told us of all the things he had
done before he began to break into houses. Dicky picked up the tools
from the floor, and suddenly he said--

'Why, this is Father's screwdriver and his gimlets, and all! Well, I do
call it jolly cheek to pick a man's locks with his own tools!'

'True, true,' said the robber. 'It is cheek, of the jolliest! But you
see I've come down in the world. I was a highway robber once, but
horses are so expensive to hire--five shillings an hour, you know--and
I couldn't afford to keep them. The highwayman business isn't what it
was.'

'What about a bike?' said H. O.

But the robber thought cycles were low--and besides you couldn't go
across country with them when occasion arose, as you could with a trusty
steed. And he talked of highwaymen as if he knew just how we liked
hearing it.

Then he told us how he had been a pirate captain--and how he had sailed
over waves mountains high, and gained rich prizes--and how he _did_
begin to think that here he had found a profession to his mind.

'I don't say there are no ups and downs in it,' he said, 'especially
in stormy weather. But what a trade! And a sword at your side, and the
Jolly Roger flying at the peak, and a prize in sight. And all the black
mouths of your guns pointed at the laden trader--and the wind in your
favour, and your trusty crew ready to live and die for you! Oh--but it's
a grand life!'

I did feel so sorry for him. He used such nice wo