said
mechanically.

"Conver----" gasped the astonished constable. "Converted burglar?
Here!"

"He is a preacher now," added Mr. Higgs.

"Preacher?" retorted the constable. "Why it's as plain as a pikestaff.
Confederates: his part was to go down and let 'em in."

Mr. Burge raised a piteous outcry. "I hope you may be forgiven for them
words," he cried piously.

"What time did you go up to bed?" pursued the constable.

"About half-past eleven," replied Mr. Higgs.

The other grunted with satisfaction. "And he's fully dressed, with his
boots off," he remarked. "Did you hear him go out of his room at all?"

"He did go out," said the jeweller truth-fully, "but----"

"I thought so," said the constable, turning to his prisoner with
affectionate solicitude. "Now you come along o' me. Come quietly,
because it'll be the best for you in the end."

"You won't get your skull split open then," added the butcher, toying
with his cleaver.

The jeweller hesitated. He had no desire to be left alone with Mr. Burge
again; and a sense of humour, which many years' association with the
Primitive Apostles had not quite eradicated, strove for hearing.

"Think of the sermon it'll make," he said encouragingly to the frantic
Mr. Burge, "think of the congregation!"

Brother Burge replied in language which he had not used in public since
he had joined the Apostles. The butcher and another man stood guard over
him while the constable searched the premises and made all secure again.
Then with a final appeal to Mr. Higgs who was keeping in the background,
he was pitched to the police-station by the energetic constable and five
zealous assistants.

A diffidence, natural in the circumstances, prevented him from narrating
the story of his temptation to the magistrates next morning, and Mr.
Higgs was equally reticent. He was put back while the police
communicated with London, and in the meantime Brother Clark and a band
of Apostles flanked down to his support.

On his second appearance before the magistrates he was confronted with
his past; and his past to the great astonishment of the Brethren being
free from all blemish with the solitary exception of fourteen days for
stealing milk-cans, he was discharged with a caution. The disillusioned
Primitive Apostles also gave him his freedom.

THE MADNESS OF MR. LISTER

[Illustration: "The Madness of Mr. Lister."]

Old Jem Lister, of the _Susannah,_ was possessed of two de