is teeth. At last he met my eye. He winced slightly, but
recovered himself, and going to the fence, stood for a few moments on
his hands, with his bare feet quivering in the air. Then he turned
toward me and threw out a conversational preliminary.

"They is a cirkis"--said Melons gravely, hanging with his back to the
fence and his arms twisted around the palings--"a cirkis over
yonder!"--indicating the locality with his foot--"with hosses, and
hossback riders. They is a man wot rides six hosses to onct--six hosses
to onct--and nary saddle"--and he paused in expectation.

Even this equestrian novelty did not affect me. I still kept a fixed
gaze on Melons's eye, and he began to tremble and visibly shrink in his
capacious garment. Some other desperate means--conversation with Melons
was always a desperate means--must be resorted to. He recommenced more
artfully.

"Do you know Carrots?"

I had a faint remembrance of a boy of that euphonious name, with scarlet
hair, who was a playmate and persecutor of Melons. But I said nothing.

"Carrots is a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in
his boots, saw him to-day looking in your windy."

I felt that this must end here. I rose sternly and addressed Melons.

"Melons, this is all irrelevant and impertinent to the case. _You_ took
those bananas. Your proposition regarding Carrots, even if I were
inclined to accept it as credible information, does not alter the
material issue. You took those bananas. The offense under the Statutes
of California is felony. How far Carrots may have been accessory to the
fact either before or after, is not my intention at present to discuss.
The act is complete. Your present conduct shows the _animo furandi_ to
have been equally clear."

By the time I had finished this exordium, Melons had disappeared, as I
fully expected.

He never reappeared. The remorse that I have experienced for the part I
had taken in what I fear may have resulted in his utter and complete
extermination, alas, he may not know, except through these pages. For I
have never seen him since. Whether he ran away and went to sea to
reappear at some future day as the most ancient of mariners, or whether
he buried himself completely in his trousers, I never shall know. I have
read the papers anxiously for accounts of him. I have gone to the Police
Office in the vain attempt of identifying him as a lost child. But I
never saw him or heard of him since. Strange fear