upon him with so much momentum, that he
too lost his balance, and fell flat upon the boy. Not one whit
disturbed was Johnny, however, by the fear that he might have injured
his prisoner, although he had half knocked the breath from the boy's
body; on the contrary, he would, I think, have been quite pleased to
know that Theodore was seriously bruised.

Rising with some difficulty, and not without assistance from a
passer-by who had seen the catastrophe, puffing and panting, but still
retaining the hold he had taken of Theodore's collar, he hauled the boy
to his feet, and, regardless of the punishment he had already
inflicted, gave him a hard cuff upon the ear, saying,--

"You runs away from me, will you? I learns you, my poy, you shtays ven
I vants to shpeak mit you."

Supposing from this authoritative address that he was the father of the
boy who had been guilty of some wrong, the man who had helped him
passed on his way, leaving him to deal with the culprit as he saw fit.
And Johnny saw fit to handle him with any thing but gentleness, pushing
him before him across the street, and into the shop, giving him now and
then a vicious shake, diversifying this with an occasional punch in the
back with the fist of the disengaged hand. Had they had any distance to
go, they would probably have drawn a crowd after them; as it was, they
reached Johnny's quarters without attracting any special attention.

"Now," said the breathless florist when he had his captive safely
within the shelter of the shop, "now, vat is your pusiness mit Tony?
Tony is my scharge, an' I don' let him talks mit poys what shteals what
don' pelongs to dem. Vat you got here?"

And he seized the tightly closed hand containing the five dollars,
which Theodore had not yet found opportunity to conceal in a safer
place. Theodore resisted; but he was no match for Petersen, who tripped
him up again without compunction, and, regardless of consequences to
the surrounding plants,--which happily came to no harm in the
struggle,--sat upon him, and opened his hand with both his own.

Five dollars!

Johnny was not a particularly brilliant Dutchman, and his mind was
generally slow in arriving at any conclusion; but the two and two which
were to be put together here were not difficult to compute; and as he
looked from the five-dollar bill to Matty's shorn head, and back again,
he was not long in deciding that they made four. Matty for once showed
some sign of emotion a