hed."

He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and
cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the
sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the
consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his
pockets, which, as he said, were open at all times to the inspection of
his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and
the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness,
helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that
dark warren and bigger game to be had.

"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain
Forrest--and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night--I'll leave the
lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or
it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to
do. And mind you remember what I say."

It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's
delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban
aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune.

"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a
patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew
Richard Gessner when I was--er--hem--on duty in Kensington, and in all
matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You
know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim
Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England
some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly
inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me,
how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your
residence in his house."

"Then you heard about it--from whom?" Alban asked.

"Oh, 'Betty' followed you, on the day the person who calls himself
Willy Forrest, but is really the son of a jockey named Weston, returned
from Winchester. We were anxious about you, Alban--we questioned the
company into which you had fallen. I may say, indeed, that our hearths
were desolate and crape adorned our spears. We thought that you had
forgotten us--and what is life when those who should remember prefer to
forget."

Alban answered at hazard, for he knew perfectly well what was coming.
The boy "Betty," still frightened out of his wits, clung close to the
skirts of the homeless Sarah and walked with her, he knew not whithe