Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/363

 not be guilty because I had stayed with him until one o'clock, then I went to the Old Oak Tavern and spoke to the landlord there, and came back here at once.

"It was a quarter after one that the church was entered," said the officer, "and this boy left here at one o'clock so he could have met the other and got to the church."

"It takes more than a quarter of an hour to go from here to the town," said Bob.

"On the run, no," replied the policeman, "and what proves that he left here at one o'clock?"

"I can prove it; I swear it," cried Bob.

The policeman shrugged his shoulders. "This boy can explain to the magistrate," he said.

As I was being led away, Mattia threw his arms about my neck, as though it was because he wanted to embrace me, but Mattia had another object.

"Keep up your courage," he whispered, "we won't forsake you."

"Take care of Capi," I said in French, but the officer understood.

"Oh, no," he said; "I'll keep that dog. He helped me to find you; he may help me to find the other."

Handcuffed to the policeman I had to pass under the gaze of a crowd of people, but they did not jeer me like the peasants in France had done at my first arrest; these people, almost all of them, were antagonistic to the police; they were gypsies, tramps, in fact, the Bohemian vagabond.