Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/125

 way and persevered. And at last a nut budged.

"One!" whispered Irralie.

"Loosen them all, but take none off yet." The next moved readily; the third stuck; the fourth was the worst of all; and the fifth was just yielding when the prisoner whispered, "Stop!"

"Hear it?" said George Young's voice.

"Not a sound! You're becoming imaginative. You'd much better go to bed."

"Or for the police."

"Oh, perdition seize the police! I've a great mind not to have them called in at all!"

"What?"

"My good Young!" responded the other in his weariest drawl; "do not, for pity's sake, scream at me like that! It's confoundedly ill-bred. If you're too dense to see my point, come back to the school-room and let me explain it where we sha'n't be overheard by the person most interested."

The voices ceased.