his intentions; but in the meantime the whole dashed business would be in all the papers, embellished with all those unpleasant flippancies to which your newspaper reporter is so prone to stoop when he sees half a chance.  He would feel a frightful chump.  Chappies would rot him about it to the most fearful extent.  Old Brewster’s name would come into it, and he could not disguise it from himself that his father-in-law, who liked his name in the papers as little as possible, would be sorer than a sunburned neck.

“No, I say, you know!  I mean, I mean to say!”

“Pinched!” repeated the rather larger policeman.

“And annything ye say,” added his slightly smaller colleague, “will be used agenst ya ’t the trial.”

“And if ya try t’escape,” said the first speaker, twiddling his club, “ya’ll getja block knocked off.”

And, having sketched out this admirably clear and neatly-constructed scenario, the two relapsed into silence.  Officer Cassidy restored his gum to circulation.  Officer Donahue frowned sternly at his boots.

“But, I say,” said Archie, “it’s all a mistake, you know.  Absolutely a frightful error, my dear old constables.  I’m not the lad you’re after at all.  The chappie you want is a different sort of fellow altogether.  Another blighter entirely.”

New York policemen never laugh when on duty.  There is probably something in the regulations against it.  But Officer Donahue permitted the left corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary muscular spasm disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy’s granite features, as a passing breeze ruffles the surface of some bottomless lake.

“That’s what they all say!” observed Officer Donahue.

“It’s no use tryin’ that line of talk,” said Officer Cassidy.  “Babcock’s squealed.”

“Sure.  Squealed ’s morning,” said Officer Donahue.

Archie’s memory stirred vaguely.

“Babcock?” he said.  “Do you know, that name seems familiar to me, somehow.  I’m almost sure I’ve read it in the paper or something.”

“Ah, cut it out!” said Officer Cassidy, disgustedly.  The two constables exchanged a glance of austere disapproval.  This hypocrisy pained them.  “Read it in th’ paper or something!”

“By Jove!  I remember now.  He’s the chappie who was arrested in that bond business.  For goodness’ sake, my dear, merry old constables,” said Archie, astounded, “you surely aren’t labouring under the impression that I’m the Master-Mind they were talking about in the paper?  Why, what an absolutely priceless notion!  I mean to say, I ask you, what!  Frankly, laddies, do I look like a Master-Mind?”

Officer Cassidy heaved a deep sigh, which rumbled up from his interior like the first muttering of a cyclone.

“If I’d known,” he said, regretfully, “that this guy was going to turn out a ruddy Englishman, I’d have taken a slap at him with m’ stick and chanced it!”