nly entitled to a
suspension of opinion by those who condemned his ruse for this man's
capture.

Still, a code of honour is always respectable, and these two policemen
may have supposed that their mate knew no worse of this convict than
that he had redistributed some property--was what the first holder of
that property would have called a thief. One prefers to think that
Ibbetson knew of some less equivocal wickedness.

* * * * *

Perhaps this man, supposed to be drowned, would not have reappeared in
this story had it not been for one of the witnesses at the inquest, the
boy who overheard the conversation between him and his mate, before the
arrival of the police-boat.

"This boy," said the Coroner's clerk, who seemed to have an impression
that this was a State Prosecution, and that he represented the Crown,
"can give evidence as to a conversation between the"--he wanted to say
"the accused"; it would have sounded so well, but he stopped himself in
time--"between the man whose body has not been found, and"--here he
would have liked to say "an accomplice"--"and another person who has
eluded the ... that is to say, whom the police have, so far, failed to
identify ..."

"That's all right," said the Coroner. "That'll do. Boy's got something
he can tell us. What's your name, my man?"

"Wot use are you a-going to make of it?" said the boy. He did not appear
to be over twelve years old, but his assurance could not have been
greater had he been twelve score. A reporter put a dot on his paper,
which meant "Laughter, in which the Coroner joined, in a parenthesis."

An old woman who had accompanied the boy, as tutelary genius, held up a
warning finger at him. "Now, you Micky," said she, "you speak civil to
the gentleman and answer his questions accordin'." She then said to the
Coroner, as one qualified to explain the position:--"It's only his
manners, sir, and the boy has not a rebellious spirit being my
grandnephew." She utilised a lax structure of speech to introduce her
relationship to the witness. She was evidently proud of being related to
one, having probably met with few opportunities of distinction hitherto.

The witness, under the pressure at once of family influence and
constituted authority, appeared to give up the point. "'Ave it your own
way!" said he. "Michael Ragstroar."

"How am I to spell it?" said the clerk, without taking his pen out of
the ink, as though it would dry in