"Seven years, sir!" cried Esau. "What for? Old Demp ought to get it,
not us."

"You must tell the Lord Mayor that, or the alderman, to-morrow."

"But are we going to be kept in prison, sir?" I asked, with my courage
sinking.

"You are going to be locked up here till tomorrow, of course. Like to
have a good wash?"

Of course we said "Yes," and before long we looked fairly respectable
again, with the exception of scratches, bruises, and the ugly cut I had
on my ear.

The thing that encouraged me most was the way in which I saw the
inspector and constable exchange a smile, while later on they and the
other constables about gave us a good tea with bread and butter and
meat, and we had to tell all our adventures again before we were locked
up for the night, after refusing an offer that was made.

"Think we ought to have sent?" said Esau, as we sat together alone.

"I have no one I could send to but Mr John, and I shouldn't like to do
that," I said, as I wondered the while whether he would be very angry.

"And I've got nobody but mother," said Esau, "and that's what made it so
queer."

"What do you mean? Queer?"

"Yes, if I sent to her and she knew I was locked up at the station,
she'd come running down here in a dreadful fright and be having fits or
something."

"But she'll be horribly frightened now!"

"Not so much frightened. She'll think we've gone to see something, or
been asked out to supper."

"But she'll sit up."

"That won't matter, because she's sure to go to sleep."

So no message was sent--no opportunity afforded of our having bail; but
after a time this did not trouble us much. In fact, as we were
discussing our future in a low tone, wondering what punishment would be
meted out to us, and what we could do afterwards, Esau burst into a fit
of laughter.

"It was fine," he said, as he sat afterwards wiping his eyes. "And you
such a quiet, patient fellow!"

"What was fine?"

"To see you go on as you did. I say, I wonder what he'll say to the
judge?"

"We shall not go before a judge," I told him.

"Well, madjistrit then. He'll say anything, and you'll see if we don't
get sent to prison."

I said I hoped not, but I felt pretty sure that we should be punished
very severely, and the outlook seemed so bad that I began to think my
only chance would be to follow Esau's fortune, and go for a soldier.

All at once, just after he had been wondering how long "mother" would be
before s