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P.C. Lee proceeded to perform a solo on the bell very different to the two timid tintinnabulations that had preceded it during the last ten minutes; for while Ada’s friend sought the protection of the strong arm of the law, poor little Tod had screwed his courage to the sticking-point, gone back and rung the area bell, when, to his unspeakable relief, he was admitted by cook, just returned from church in so benign a humor that she forebore to scold him for being out at such untoward hours “without so much as a ’at,” and bestowed a piece of bread and dripping upon him “to stop ’is teeth a-chatterin’.”

Whereupon, comforted and refreshed, he departed to find Peter.

Meanwhile P.C. Lee insisted that he must see the missis, for Ada’s friend was unshaken in her evidence, question they never so, and the four maids at Number 9 declared that they could not sleep comfortably in their beds unless the search-light of his bull’s-eye was thrown on every dusky corner of the house by P.C. Lee himself before he took his departure.