Blue Lights | Page 3

asked Miles, with a look of such
genuine surprise that Redhair was puzzled, and the man with the
hooked nose, who had been listening attentively, looked slightly
confused.
"Read that, sir," said the detective, extracting a newspaper cutting from
his pocket and laying it on the table before Miles.
While he read, the two men watched him with interest, so did some of
those who sat near, for they began to perceive that something was "in
the wind."
The tell-tale blood sprang to the youth's brow as he read and perceived
the meaning of the man's remarks. At this Redhair and Hook-nose
nodded to each other significantly.
"You don't mean to say," exclaimed Miles, in a tone of grand
indignation which confirmed the men in their suspicion, "that you think
this description applies to me?"
"I wouldn't insinivate too much, sir, though I have got my suspicions,"

said Redhair blandly; "but of course that's easy settled, for if your
father's 'ouse is anyw'ere hereabouts, your father won't object to
identify his son."
"Ridiculous!" exclaimed Miles, rising angrily at this interruption to his
plans. The two men rose promptly at the same moment. "Of course my
father will prove that you have made a mistake, but--"
He hesitated in some confusion, for the idea of re-appearing before his
father so soon, and in such company, after so stoutly asserting that he
would never more return, was humiliating. The detective observed the
hesitation and became jocose.
"If you'd rather not trouble your parent," said Redhair, "you've got no
call to do it. The station ain't far off, and the sooner we get there the
better for all parties."
A slight clink of metal at this point made Miles aware of the fact that
Hook-nose was drawing a pair of handcuffs from one of his pockets.
The full significance of his position suddenly burst upon him. The
thought of being led home a prisoner, or conveyed to the police-station
handcuffed, maddened him; and the idea of being thus unjustly checked
at the very outset of his independent career made him furious. For a
few moments he stood so perfectly still and quiet that the detectives
were thrown slightly off their guard. Then there was an explosion of
some sort within the breast of Miles Milton. It expended itself in a
sudden impulse, which sent Redhead flat on the table among the
crockery, and drove Hook-nose into the fireplace among the fire-irons.
A fat little man chanced to be standing in the door-way. The same
impulse, modified, shot that little man into the street like a cork out of a
bottle, and next moment Miles was flying along the pavement at racing
speed, horrified at what he had done, but utterly reckless as to what
might follow!
Hearing the shouts of pursuers behind him, and being incommoded by
passers-by in the crowded thoroughfare, Miles turned sharply into a
by-street, and would have easily made his escape--being uncommonly

swift of foot--had he not been observed by an active little man of
supple frame and presumptuous tendencies. Unlike the mass of
mankind around him--who stared and wondered--the active little man
took in the situation at a glance, joined in the pursuit, kept well up, thus
forming a sort of connecting-link between the fugitive and pursuers,
and even took upon himself to shout "Stop thief!" as he ran. Miles
endeavoured to throw him off by putting on, as schoolboys have it, "a
spurt." But the active little man also spurted and did not fall far behind.
Then Miles tried a second double, and got into a narrow street, which a
single glance showed him was a blind alley! Disappointment and anger
hereupon took possession of him, and he turned at bay with the
tiger-like resolve to run a-muck!
Fortunately for himself he observed a pot of whitewash standing near a
half-whitened wall, with a dirty canvas frock and a soiled billycock
lying beside it. The owner of the property had left it inopportunely, for,
quick as thought, Miles wriggled into the frock, flung on the billycock,
seized the pot, and walked in a leisurely way to the head of the alley.
He reached it just as the active little man turned into it, at the rate of ten
miles an hour. A yell of "Stop thief!" issued from the man's
presumptuous lips at the moment.
His injunction was obeyed to the letter, for the would-be thief of an
honest man's character on insufficient evidence was stopped by Miles's
bulky person so violently that the whitewash was scattered all about,
and part of it went into the active man's eyes.
To squash the large brush into the little man's face, and thus effectually
complete what his own recklessness had begun, was the work of an
instant. As he did it,