his face, and at his
back a policeman, with whom Mr. Peasemarsh spoke long in a hoarse
earnest whisper.

"I daresay you're right," said the policeman at last. "Anyway, I'll take
'em up on a charge of unlawful possession, pending inquiries. And the
magistrate will deal with the case. Send the afflicted ones to a home,
as likely as not, and the boys to a reformatory. Now then, come along,
youngsters! No use making a fuss. You bring the gells along, Mr.
Peasemarsh, sir, and I'll shepherd the boys."

Speechless with rage and horror, the four children were driven along the
streets of Rochester. Tears of anger and shame blinded them, so that
when Robert ran right into a passer-by he did not recognise her till a
well-known voice said, "Well, if ever I did! Oh, Master Robert, whatever
have you been a-doing of now?" And another voice, quite as well known,
said, "Panty; want go own Panty!"

They had run into Martha and the Baby!

[Illustration: They had run into Martha and the baby]

Martha behaved admirably. She refused to believe a word of the
policeman's story, or of Mr. Peasemarsh's either, even when they made
Robert turn out his pockets in an archway and show the guineas.

"I don't see nothing," she said. "You've gone out of your senses, you
two! There ain't any gold there--only the poor child's hands, all over
dirt, and like the very chimbley. Oh that I should ever see the day!"

And the children thought this very noble of Martha, even if rather
wicked, till they remembered how the Fairy had promised that the
servants should never notice any of the fairy gifts. So of course Martha
couldn't see the gold, and so was only speaking the truth, and that was
quite right, of course, but not extra noble.

It was getting dusk when they reached the police-station. The policeman
told his tale to an inspector, who sat in a large bare room with a thing
like a clumsy nursery-fender at one end to put prisoners in. Robert
wondered whether it was a cell or a dock.

"Produce the coins, officer," said the inspector.

"Turn out your pockets," said the constable.

Cyril desperately plunged his hands in his pockets, stood still a
moment, and then began to laugh--an odd sort of laugh that hurt, and
that felt much more like crying. His pockets were empty. So were the
pockets of the others. For of course at sunset all the fairy gold had
vanished away.

"Turn out your pockets, and stop that noise," said the inspector.

Cyril turned o