dently, "and I was trying to get it back, and now it's gone. What
will Mr Brownsmith say?"

"Old Brownsmith won't say never a word," said Ike, as we trudged on
along a more respectable street.

"Oh, but he will," I cried. "He is so particular about the ropes."

"So he be, my lad. Here, let's brush you down; you're a bit dirty."

"But he will," I said, as I submitted to the operation.

"Not he," said Ike. "Them police is in the right of it. I'm all of a
shiver, now that bit of a burst's over;" and he wiped his brow.

"You are, Ike?" I said wonderingly.

"To be sure I am, my lad. I was all right there, and ready to fight;
but now it's over and we're well out of it, I feel just as I did when
the cart tipped up and all the baskets come down atop of you."

"I am glad you feel like that," I said.

"Why?" he cried sharply.

"Because it makes me feel that I was not such a terrible coward after
all."

"But you were," he said, giving me a curious look. "Oh, yes: about as
big a coward as ever I see."

I did not understand why I was so very great a coward, but he did not
explain, and I trudged on by him.

"I say, what would you have done if I hadn't come?"

"I don't know," I said. "I suppose they would have let me go at last.
They got all my money."

"They did?"

"Yes," I said dolefully; "and then there's the rope. What will Mr
Brownsmith say?"

"Nothin' at all," said Ike.

"But he will," I cried again.

"No he won't, because we'll buy a new one 'fore we goes back."

"I thought of that," I said, "but I've no money now."

"Oh, all right! I have," he said. "We may think ourselves well out of
a bad mess, my lad; and I don't know as we oughtn't to go to the police,
but we haven't no time for that. There'll be another load o' strawb'ys
ready by the time we get back, and I shall have to come up again
to-night. Strawb'ys sold well to-day. No: we've no time for the
police."

"They deserve to be taken up," I said.

"Ay, they do, my boy; but folks don't get all they deserve."

"Or I should be punished for letting that boy steal the rope."

"Hang the rope!" he said crustily. "I mean, hang the boy or his father,
and that's what some of 'em'll come to," he cried grimly, "if they don't
mind. They're a bad lot down that court. Lor' a mussy me! I'd sooner
live in one of our sheds on some straw, with a sack for a pillow, than
be shut up along o' these folk in them courts."

"But they wouldn't hav