Thus she played the gray plover with him she hated, and kept the beloved hands from crime.

When Little found that Coventry had left Hillsborough, he pretended to himself that he was glad of it.  “My darling is right,” said he.  “I will obey her, and do nothing contrary to law.  I will throw him into prison, that is all.”  With these moderated views, he called upon his friend Ransome, whom of course he had, as yet, carefully avoided, to ask his aid in collecting the materials for an indictment.  He felt sure that Coventry had earned penal servitude, if the facts could only be put in evidence.  He found Ransome in low spirits, and that excellent public servant being informed what he was wanted for, said dryly, “Well, but this will require some ability:  don’t you think your friend Silly Billy would be more likely to do it effectually than John Ransome?”

“Why, Ransome, are you mad?”

“No, I merely do myself justice.  Silly Billy smelt that faulty grindstone; and I can’t smell a rat a yard from my nose, it seems.  You shall judge for yourself.  There have been several burglaries in this town of late, and planned by a master.  This put me on my mettle, and I have done all I could, with my small force, and even pryed about in person, night after night, and that is not exactly my business, but I felt it my duty.  Well, sir, two nights ago, no more, I had the luck to come round a corner right upon a job:  Alderman Dick’s house, full of valuables, and the windows well guarded; but one of his cellars is only covered with a heavy wooden shutter, bolted within.  I found this open, and a board wedged in, to keep it ajar:  down I went on my knees, saw a light inside, and heard two words of thieves’ latin; that was enough, you know; I whipped out the board, jumped on the heavy shutter, and called for the police.”

“Did you expect them to come?”

“Not much.  These jobs are timed so as not to secure the attendance of the police.  But assistance of another kind came; a gentleman full dressed, in a white tie and gloves, ran up, and asked me what it was.  ‘Thieves in the cellar,’ said I, and shouted police, and gave my whistle.  The gentleman jumped on the shutter.  ‘I can keep that down,’ said he.  ‘I’m sure I saw two policemen in acorn Street:  run quick!’ and he showed me his sword-cane, and seemed so hearty in it, and confident, I ran round the corner, and gave my whistle.  Two policemen came up; but, in that moment, the swell accomplice had pulled all his pals out of the cellar, and all I saw of the lot, when I came back, was the swell’s swallow-tail coat flying like the wind toward a back slum, where I and my bobbies should have been knocked on the head, if we had tried to follow him; but indeed he was too fleet to give us the chance.”

“Well,” said Henry, “that was provoking:  but who can foresee every thing all in a moment?  I have been worse duped than that a good many times.”

Ransome shook his head.  “An old officer of police, like me, not to smell a swell accomplice.  I had only to handcuff that man, and set him down with me on the shutter, till, in the dispensation of Providence, a bobby came by.”