ry slowly to a sitting position, and tried to look round
him, seeing more stars than he had when he knelt at his bedroom window,
these too having a peculiar circling motion of their own, which made his
head ache violently.

"He's got the best of me again," said the boy rather piteously, "for
it's no good to go after him now."

Tom had the organ of order sufficiently developed to make him wish to
pick up and return the ladder instead of leaving it lying in the yard;
but he felt shaken up, and the feeling of confusion came upon him again
so strongly that he stood thinking for a few minutes, and then went and
unlocked the gate, listened a while, and then locked it after him and
crossed the lane into the garden.

The next minute he was under his bedroom window, feeling unwilling to
climb up, for he was getting cold and stiff; but he dragged himself on
to the sill, got in, and without stopping to undress, threw himself on
the bed and fell into a sound sleep, in which he dreamed that two
policemen came down from London with the big black prison van and
carried off Pete Warboys, who was taken to the Old Bailey to be tried
for stealing the round wooden dome-shaped structure which formed the top
of the mill.

He was awakened next morning soon after six by the pattering at his
window of some scraps of fine gravel, and jumping off the bed he found
David below on the lawn.

"Here, look sharp and come down, Master Tom," cried the gardener
excitedly.

"What's the matter?" said Tom, whose mind was rather blank as to the
past night's business.

"Some 'un's been in the night and stole the tallowscoop."

"Nonsense!"

"But they have, sir. It's as fact as fack. There's the top wooden
window open, and Jellard's long fruit-ladder lying in the yard."

Tom hurried down at once, to find the ladder just as he had left it; and
on entering the mill, closely followed by David, he looked round for
traces of the burglarious work that must have been done.

But all was in its ordinary state in the workshop, and after a sharp
investigation, Tom was on his way to the steps, when David looked at him
in a half-injured way as if disappointed.

"What, arn't nothing stole here, sir?"

"No; everything seems to be right," replied Tom.

"Well, I should ha' thought they'd ha' took the spacklums or something
while they was about it."

But matters wore a different aspect upon the laboratory being reached.
On the whole the place looked undistur