Pinton gave a tug, and then his heart stopped beating.  The door was locked.  Something like a curse, something like a prayer, rose to his lips, and his arms fell helplessly to his side.

Mrs. Hallam, realizing that it was Saturday night—­the predatory night of the week—­had secured her pastry, her confitures, her celebrated desserts; and so poor Pinton, all his sweet teeth furiously aching, his mouth watering, stood on the hither side of Paradise, a baffled peri in pantaloons!

After a pause, full of pain and troublous previsions of a restless, discontented night, Pinton grew angry and pulled at the knob of the door, thinking, perhaps, that it might abate a jot of its dignified resistance.  It remained immovable, grimly antagonistic, until his fingers grew hot and cold as they touched a bit of cold metal.

The key in the lock!  In a second it was turned, and the hungry one was within and restlessly searching and fumbling for food.  He felt along the lower shelves and met apples, oranges, and sealed bottles containing ruined, otherwise miscalled preserved, fruit.  He knelt on the dresser and explored the upper shelf.  Ah, here was richness indeed!  Pies, pies, cakes, pies, frosted cakes, cakes sweating golden, fruity promises, and cakes as icy as the hand of charity.  Pinton was happy, glutton that he was, and he soon filled the pockets of his overcoat.  What Mrs. Hallam might say in the morning he cared not.  Let the galled jade wince, his breakfast appetite would be unwrung; and then he started violently, lost his balance, and almost fell to the floor.

Opposite him was the window of the pantry, which faced the wall of the next house.  Pinton had never been in the pantry by daylight, so he was rudely shocked by the glance of a light—­a cursory, moving light.  It showed him a window in the other house and a pair of stairs.  It flickered about an old baluster and a rusty carpet, it came from below, it mounted upward and was lost to view.

The burglar of pies, the ravisher of cakes, was almost shocked by this unexpected light.  He watched it dancing fantastically on the discoloured wall of the house; he wondered—­ill at ease—­if it would flash in his face.  His surmise was realized, for a streak of illumination reached the narrow chamber in which he cowered, and then he was certain some one was looking at him.  He never budged, for he was too frightened.  Suddenly the light vanished and a head was dimly silhouetted in the window opposite.  It nodded to Pinton.  Pinton stared stupidly, and the head disappeared.  The hungry man, his appetite now gone, was numb and terrified.

What did it mean, who was the man?  A detective, or a friend of Mrs. Hallam’s in a coign from which the plunderers of her pantry could be noted?  Beady repentance stood out on Pinton’s forehead.

And the light came back.  This time it was intelligible, for it was a lantern in the hand of a young man of about thirty.  His face was open and smiling.  He wore his hair rather long for an American, and it was blond and curling.