“Hello, Hinglish!” he yelled.  “We’re a Barnardo boy, we h’is, fer all our swell brass buttons.”

Buck winced.  How he hated Watkins on the box to hear this everlasting taunt cast at him.  But a sweet voice from the steps called: 

“You are quite right, my boy.  He is a Barnardo boy.  I wish we were all as great and good as Dr. Barnardo.  I am proud to have one of his boys in my household.”

The young urchin shrank away, abashed, for it was Miss Connie’s voice.  Buck pulled himself together, touched his hat, and opened the carriage door.  But the girl paused on the steps, and her voice was very sincere as she said:  “I mean it, Buckney” (she always called him “Buckney").  “I am very proud to have you here.”

Buck touched his hat.  “Thank you, madam,” was all he said, but his young heart sang with gratitude.  Would he ever get the chance to show her how he valued her kindness, he wondered.  And then—­the chance came.

Buck was never a heavy sleeper; his boyhood had been too bedless for him to attach much importance to sleep now.  Too often had the tip of a policeman’s boot stirred him gently, as he lay curled up near an alley-way in London.  Too often had rude kicks awakened him, when down in the “slums” he huddled, numb with cold and hunger.  His ears had grown acute, his legs nimble in that dreadful, faraway life, and listening while he slept became second nature.  Thus he sat bolt upright in his comfortable little bed above the carriage house when a soft creeping footstep stole up the gravel walk from the stables to the kitchen.  The night was very warm, and the open window at his elbow was shutterless.  In the dark he could see nothing at first, then he made out the figure of a man, crouching low, and creeping around the kitchen porch to the doctor’s surgery window.  Immediately afterwards a low, gentle, rasping sound fell on his ears.  He had seen enough of crime in the old days to know the man was filing something.  Should he awaken Watkins?  What was the use?  Watkins would probably jump up, exclaiming aloud.  He always did when awakened suddenly.  Perhaps, after all, he could alarm the family before the man got in.  Then, to his amazement, someone opened the window from the inside.  By this time Buck had got his “night-sight.”  The man inside was exactly like the man outside, and he had evidently effected an entrance into the house some time during the day when the maids were upstairs, and had probably concealed himself in the cellar.  Both wore masks.  Instantly Buck was out of bed, dragging on his trousers.  Then, barefooted and shirtless, he slipped downstairs, slid the side door open enough to squeeze through, and peered out.  All he could see was the last leg of a man disappearing through the window.  They were both inside now.  Buck knew every room, hall and door in that house, for every spring and fall he had helped the maids “clean house,” taking up and laying carpets.