"It's a judgment," he said. "Oh, 'ere's a thing to 'appen to a chap!
Cats an' cats an' cats. Let alone the cow. If she ain't the moral of
the old man's Daisy! She's a dream out of when I was a lad; I don't
mind 'er so much. 'Ere, Daisy, Daisy!"
The cow turned and looked at him.
"_She's_ all right," he went on; "sort of company, too. But them
cats--oh, take 'em away, take 'em away! Oh, take 'em away!"
"Burglar," said Jane, close behind him, and he started convulsively
and turned on her a blank face whose pale lips trembled--"I can't take
those cats away."
"Lor'!" exclaimed the man; "if 'ere ain't another on 'em. Are you real,
miss, or something I'll wake up from presently?"
"I am quite real," said Jane, relieved to find that a lisp was not
needed to make the burglar understand her. "And so," she added, "are
the cats."
"Then send for the police, send for the police, and I'll go quiet. If
you ain't no realler than them cats I'm done. Send for the police. I'll
go quiet. One thing, there'd not be room for 'arf them cats in no cell
as ever _I_ see."
He ran his fingers through his hair, which was short, and his eyes
wandered wildly round the roomful of cats.
"Burglar," said Jane, kindly and softly, "if you didn't like cats,
what did you come here for?"
[Illustration: "'IT'S A JUDGMENT,' HE SAID. 'OH, 'ERE'S A THING TO
'APPEN TO A CHAP!'"]
"Send for the police," was the unfortunate criminal's only reply. "I'd
rather you would--honest, I'd rather."
"I daren't," said Jane; "and, besides, I've no one to send. I hate the
police. I wish he'd never been born."
"You've a feeling 'art, miss," said the burglar. "But them cats is
really a little bit too thick."
"Look here," said Jane. "I won't call the police. And I am quite a real
little girl, though I talk older than the kind you have met before when
you've been doing your burglings. And they _are_ real cats--and they
want real milk--and--didn't you say the cow was like somebody's Daisy
that you used to know? Well, then, perhaps you know how to milk cows?"
"Perhaps I does," was the burglar's cautious rejoinder.
"Then," said Jane, "if you will _only_ milk ours, you don't know how we
shall always love you."
The burglar replied that loving was all very well.
"If those cats only had a good, long, wet, thirsty drink of milk," Jane
went on, with eager persuasion, "they'll lie down and go to sleep as
likely as not, and then the police won't come back. But if they go on
mewing like this he will, and then I don't know what'll become of us or
you either."
This argument seemed to decide the criminal. Jane fetched the wash-bowl
from the sink and he prepared to milk the cow. At this instant boots
were heard on the stairs.
"It's all up," said the man, desperately. "This 'ere's a plant.
_'Ere's_ the police." He made as if to open the window and leap from it.
"It's all right, I tell you," whispered Jane, in anguish. "I'll say
you're a friend of mine, or the good clergyman called in, or my uncle,
or _anything_--only do, do, do milk the cow. Oh, _don't_ go--oh--oh,
thank goodness, it's only the boys!"
It was; and their entrance had awakened Anthea, who, with her brothers,
now crowded through the doorway. The man looked about him as a rat
looks round a trap.
"This is a friend of mine," said Jane. "He's just called in, and he's
going to milk the cow for us. _Isn't_ it good and kind of him?"
She winked at the others, and though they did not understand they
played up loyally.
"How do?" said Cyril. "Very glad to meet you. Don't let us interrupt
the milking."
The burglar began to milk the cow, and the others went to get things to
put the milk in, for it was now spurting and foaming in the wash-bowl,
and the cats had ceased from mewing and were crowding round the cow,
with expressions of hope and anticipation on their whiskered faces.
"We can't get rid of any more cats," said Cyril, as he and his sisters
piled a tray high with saucers and soup-plates and platters and
pie-dishes; "the police nearly got us as it was. Not the same one--a
much stronger sort. He thought it really was a foundling orphan we'd
got. If it hadn't been for me throwing the two bags of cat slap in
his eye and hauling Robert over a railing, and lying like mice under
a laurel bush--well, it's jolly lucky I'm a good shot, that's all.
He pranced off when he'd got the cat-bags off his face--thought we'd
bolted. And here we are."
The gentle sameishness of the milk swishing into the hand-bowl seemed
to have soothed the burglar very much. He went on milking in a sort of
happy dream, while the children got a cup and ladled the warm milk out
into the pie-dishes and plates, and platters and saucers, and set them
down to the music of Persian purrs and lappings.
[Illustration: "HE WENT ON MILKING IN A SORT OF HAPPY DREAM."]
"It makes me think of old times," said the burglar, smearing his ragged
coat-cuff across his eyes; "about the apples in the orchard at home,
and the rats at threshing time, and the rabbits and the ferrets, and
how pretty it was seeing the pigs killed."