"Well, well! let's hear the whole story. Where is the complainant?"

A rather pale and awe-stricken child appeared somewhere in a little box
opposite Frank, with a virtuous mother in black silk behind her. It
appeared that this child was on her way to her aunt--her father was a
grocer--with a tin of salmon that had been promised and forgotten (that
was how she came to be out so late). As she reached the corner by
Barker's Lane a man had jumped at her and seized the tin. (No; he had
not used any other violence.) She had screamed at the top of her voice,
and Mrs. Jennings' door had opened. Then the man had run away.

"Had she seen the man clearly?" No, she hadn't seen him at all; she had
just seen that he was a man. ("Called himself one," put in a voice.) The
witness here cast an indignant--almost vindictive--look at Frank.

Then a few corroborations were issued. Mrs. Jennings, a widow lady,
keeping house for her brother who was a foreman in Marks' yard, ratified
the statement about the door being opened. She was going to shut up for
the night when she heard the child scream. Her brother, a severe-looking
man, with a black beard, finished her story. He had heard his sister
call out, as he was taking off his boots at the foot of the stairs; he
had run out with his laces dangling, in time to see the man run past the
public-house fifty yards up the street. No ... he, too, had not seen the
man clearly, but he had seen him before, in company with another; the
two had come to his yard that afternoon to ask for work and been
refused, as they wanted no more hands.

"Well, what had happened then?"

He had hammered at two or three doors as he ran past, among them that of
the police-constable, and himself had run on, in time to hear the
prisoner's footsteps run up the lane leading to the barn. He had stopped
then as he was out of breath, and as he thought they would have the man
now, since there was no exit from the lane except through Mr. Patten's
farm-yard, and if he'd gone that way they'd have heard the dogs.

Finally the police-constable corroborated the entire story, and added
that he, in company with the foreman and two other men, had "proceeded"
to the barn immediately, and there had found the prisoner, who was
pretending to be asleep, with the tin of salmon (produced and laid on
the table) hidden inside his jacket. He had then taken him into custody.

"Was there any one else in the barn?"

Yes--two persons, who gave