Tommy did not wait for them. No one held him, and he ran away at the top
of his speed. What a nightmare sort of run it was!--the policemen
chasing him, and the clown urging them on at the top of his voice.
Everybody he passed turned round and ran after him too.

Still he kept ahead. He was surprised to find how fast he could run, and
all at once he remembered that he was running the opposite way from
home. Quick as thought he turned up the first street he came to, hoping
to throw them off the scent and get home by a back way.

For the moment he thought he had got rid of them; but just as he stopped
to take breath, they all came whooping and hallooing round the corner
after him; and he had to scamper on, panting, and sobbing, and
staggering, and almost out of his mind with fright. If he could only
get home first, and tell his mother! But they were gaining on him, and
the clown was leading and roaring with delight as he drew closer and
closer. He came to a point where two roads met. It was round another
corner, and they could not see him. He ran down one, and, to his immense
relief, found they had taken the other. He was saved, for his house was
quite near now.

He tried to hasten, but the pavement was all slushy and slippery, and
his boots felt heavier and heavier, and, to add to his misery, the
pursuers had found out their mistake. As he looked back, he could see
the clown galloping round the corner and hear his yell of discovery.

'Oh, fairy, dear fairy,' he gasped, 'save me this time. I _do_ like your
part best, now!'

She must have heard him and taken pity, for in a second he had reached
his door, and it flew open before him. He was not safe even yet, so he
rushed upstairs to his bedroom, and bounced, just as he was, into his
bed.

'If they come up I'll pretend I'm ill,' he thought, as he covered his
head with the bedclothes.

They _were_ coming up, all of them. There was a great trampling on the
stairs. He heard the clown officiously shouting: 'This way, Mr.
Policeman, sir!' and then a tremendous battering at his door.

He lay there shivering under the blankets.

'Perhaps they'll think the door's locked, and go away,' he tried to
hope, and the battering went on not quite so violently.

'Master Tommy! Master Tommy!' It was Sarah's voice. They had got her to
come up and tempt him out. Well, she _wouldn't_, then!

And then--oh! horror!--the door was thrown open. He sprang out of bed in
an agony.

'Sa