The robber agreed to this, and gave his word of honour, and asked if he might put on a pipe, and we said 'Yes,' and he sat in Father's armchair and warmed his boots, which steamed, and I sent H. O. and Alice to put on some clothes and tell the others, and bring down Dicky's and my knickerbockers, and the rest of the chestnuts.
And they all came, and we sat round the fire, and it was jolly.
The robber was very friendly, and talked to us a great deal.
'I wasn't always in this low way of business,' he said, when Noel said something about the things he had turned out of his pockets.
'It's a great come-down to a man like me. But, if I must be caught, it's something to be caught by brave young heroes like you.
My stars! How you did bolt into the room, - "Surrender, and up with your hands!" You might have been born and bred to the thief-catching.'
Oswald is sorry if it was mean, but he could not own up just then that he did not think there was any one in the study when he did that brave if rash act. He has told since.
'And what made you think there was any one in the house?' the robber asked, when he had thrown his head back, and laughed for quite half a minute. So we told him. And he applauded our valour, and Alice and H. O. explained that they would have said 'Surrender,' too, only they were reinforcements.
The robber ate some of the chestnuts - and we sat and wondered when Father would come home, and what he would say to us for our intrepid conduct. And the robber told us of all the things he had done before he began to break into houses. Dicky picked up the tools from the floor, and suddenly he said -'Why, this is Father's screwdriver and his gimlets, and all! Well, I do call it jolly cheek to pick a man's locks with his own tools!'
'True, true,' said the robber. 'It is cheek, of the jolliest! But you see I've come down in the world. I was a highway robber once, but horses are so expensive to hire - five shillings an hour, you know - and I couldn't afford to keep them. The highwayman business isn't what it was.'
'What about a bike?' said H. O.
But the robber thought cycles were low - and besides you couldn't go across country with them when occasion arose, as you could with a trusty steed. And he talked of highwaymen as if he knew just how we liked hearing it.
Then he told us how he had been a pirate captain - and how he had sailed over waves mountains high, and gained rich prizes - and how he did begin to think that here he had found a profession to his mind.
'I don't say there are no ups and downs in it,' he said, 'especially in stormy weather. But what a trade! And a sword at your side, and the Jolly Roger flying at the peak, and a prize in sight. And all the black mouths of your guns pointed at the laden trader - and the wind in your favour, and your trusty crew ready to live and die for you! Oh - but it's a grand life!'
I did feel so sorry for him. He used such nice words, and he had a gentleman's voice.
'I'm sure you weren't brought up to be a pirate,' said Dora. She had dressed even to her collar - and made Noel do it too - but the rest of us were in blankets with just a few odd things put on anyhow underneath.
The robber frowned and sighed.
'No,' he said, 'I was brought up to the law. I was at Balliol, bless your hearts, and that's true anyway.' He sighed again, and looked hard at the fire.
'That was my Father's college,' H. O. was beginning, but Dicky said - 'Why did you leave off being a pirate?'
'A pirate?' he said, as if he had not been thinking of such things.
'Oh, yes; why I gave it up because - because I could not get over the dreadful sea-sickness.'
'Nelson was sea-sick,' said Oswald.
'Ah,' said the robber; 'but I hadn't his luck or his pluck, or something. He stuck to it and won Trafalgar, didn't he? "Kiss me, Hardy" - and all that, eh? I couldn't stick to it - I had to resign. And nobody kissed me.'
I saw by his understanding about Nelson that he was really a man who had been to a good school as well as to Balliol.
Then we asked him, 'And what did you do then?'
And Alice asked if he was ever a coiner, and we told him how we had thought we'd caught the desperate gang next door, and he was very much interested and said he was glad he had never taken to coining.
'Besides, the coins are so ugly nowadays,' he said, 'no one could really find any pleasure in making them. And it's a hole-and-corner business at the best, isn't it? - and it must be a very thirsty one - with the hot metal and furnaces and things.'
And again he looked at the fire.
Oswald forgot for a minute that the interesting stranger was a robber, and asked him if he wouldn't have a drink. Oswald has heard Father do this to his friends, so he knows it is the right thing. The robber said he didn't mind if he did. And that is right, too.
And Dora went and got a bottle of Father's ale - the Light Sparkling Family - and a glass, and we gave it to the robber. Dora said she would be responsible.
Then when he had had a drink he told us about bandits, but he said it was so bad in wet weather. Bandits' caves were hardly ever properly weathertight. And bush-ranging was the same.
'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'I was bush-ranging this afternoon, among the furze-bushes on the Heath, but I had no luck. I stopped the Lord Mayor in his gilt coach, with all his footmen in plush and gold lace, smart as cockatoos. But it was no go. The Lord Mayor hadn't a stiver in his pockets. One of the footmen had six new pennies: the Lord Mayor always pays his servants' wages in new pennies. I spent fourpence of that in bread and cheese, that on the table's the tuppence. Ah, it's a poor trade!' And then he filled his pipe again.
We had turned out the gas, so that Father should have a jolly good surprise when he did come home, and we sat and talked as pleasant as could be. I never liked a new man better than I liked that robber. And I felt so sorry for him. He told us he had been a war-correspondent and an editor, in happier days, as well as a horse-stealer and a colonel of dragoons.
And quite suddenly, just as we were telling him about Lord Tottenham and our being highwaymen ourselves, he put up his hand and said 'Shish!' and we were quiet and listened.
