Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/80

 "Haw, haw!" laughed the policeman. He turned on his heel and started back along his beat, but he did not shake off the boys. They wanted to learn something before they left him, so they kept close to him, one on each side.

"But I assure you there has been the biggest kind of a blunder made," Joe insisted. "The wrong boy has been arrested. His name is Roy Sheldon, and he left Mount Airy with us this morning. Everybody there knows him and us, too."

"No, I guess not," replied the policeman, with another laugh. "Bab's been in the business too long to make a mistake that might get him into trouble."

"Who's Bab?"

"Why, Bab—Babcock, the detective," answered the officer, in a tone which implied that he had no patience with a boy who could ask him so foolish a question. "The youngster had the cheek to appeal to me for protection, but I told him he had better go along peaceable and quiet, for it would only make matters worse for him if he didn't. I knew Bab, you see."