For he did return, with the pal and the barrow and
the sacks. The pal approved of the cats, now dormant in Persian
repletion, and they were bundled into the sacks, and taken away on
the barrow--mewing, indeed, but with mews too sleepy to attract
public attention.
'I'm a fence--that's what I am,' said the burglar gloomily. 'I
never thought I'd come down to this, and all acause er my kind
'eart.'
Cyril knew that a fence is a receiver of stolen goods, and he
replied briskly--
'I give you my sacred the cats aren't stolen. What do you make the
time?'
'I ain't got the time on me,' said the pal--'but it was just about
chucking-out time as I come by the "Bull and Gate". I shouldn't
wonder if it was nigh upon one now.'
When the cats had been removed, and the boys and the burglar had
parted with warm expressions of friendship, there remained only the
cow.
'She must stay all night,' said Robert. 'Cook'll have a fit when
she sees her.'
'All night?' said Cyril. 'Why--it's tomorrow morning if it's one.
We can have another wish!'
So the carpet was urged, in a hastily written note, to remove the
cow to wherever she belonged, and to return to its proper place on
the nursery floor. But the cow could not be got to move on to the
carpet. So Robert got the clothes line out of the back kitchen,
and tied one end very firmly to the cow's horns, and the other end
to a bunched-up corner of the carpet, and said 'Fire away.
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