Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/114

 the parson in the street; had called to him, indeed, to haste to the bashing of the Ropers; and thus had first given the stranger notice of the proceeding. But it was the way of the Jago that its mean cunning saw a mystery and a terror where simple intelligence saw there was none.

As the crowd began to break up, Dicky pushed his own door a little open behind him and there stood on his own ground as the others cleared off; and the hunchback ventured a peep from behind his swooning mother.

"There y' are, that's 'im!" he shouted, pointing at Dicky. "'E begun it! 'E took the clock!"

Dicky instantly dropped behind his door and shut it fast.

The invaders had all gone—the Fishers had made upstairs in the beginning—before the parson turned and entered the Ropers' room. In five minutes he emerged and strode upstairs; whence he returned