stuff
here, look!"--holding up the package he was carrying--"or a chance for
me to do some fly catchin' with me bloomin' tickle tootsies?"

The man in the Cingalese costume had vanished from the doorway of the
adjoining house, and, catching the boy by the arm, Cleek hurried him to
it and drew him into the dark passage.

"I'm going to the back; I'm going to climb up to the windows of the
second storey and see who's there and what's going on," he whispered.
"Lie low and watch. I think it's Margot's gang."

"Oh, colour me blue! Them beauties? And in London? I'd give a tanner for
a strong cup o' tea!"

"Shh-h! Be quiet--speak low. Don't be seen, but keep a close watch; and
if anybody comes downstairs----"

"He's mine!" interjected Dollops, stripping up his sleeves. "Glue to the
eyebrows and warranted to stick! Nip away, guv'ner, and leave it to the
tickle tootsies and me!" Then, as Cleek moved swiftly and silently down
the passage and slipped out into the sort of yard at the back of the
house, he pulled out his roll of brown paper squares and his tube of
adhesive, and crawling upstairs on his hands and knees, began operations
at the top step. But he had barely got the first "plaster" fairly made
and ready to apply when there came a rush of footsteps behind him and he
was obliged to duck down and flatten himself against the floor of the
landing to escape being run down by a man who dashed in through the
lower door, flew at top speed up the stairs and, with a sort of blended
cheer and yell, whirled open a door on the landing above and vanished.
In a twinkling other cheers rang out, there was the sound of hastily
moving feet and the uproar of general excitement.

"Oh, well, if you won't stop to be waited on, gents, help yourselves!"
said Dollops with a chuckle. Then he began backing hastily down the
stairs, squirting the contents of the tube all over the steps, and
concluded the operation by scattering all the loose sheets of paper on
the floor at the foot of them before slipping out into the street and
composedly waiting.

Meantime Cleek, sneaking out through the rear door, found himself in a
small, brick-paved yard hemmed in by a high wall thickly fringed on the
top with a hedge of broken bottles. At one time in its history the house
had been occupied by a catgut maker, and the rickety shed in which he
had carried on his calling still clung, sagging and broken-roofed, to
the building itself, its rotten slates all bu