head and muttering. It was their judgment, stated with much frankness,
that if he had been a fool in the first place to steal the child, his
character was now blackened beyond any hope by his later crimes. Mary wept
copiously; Humpy most annoyingly kept counting upon his fingers as he
reckoned the "time" that was in store for all of them.

"I guess I got into ut an' I guess I'll git out," remarked The Hopper
serenely. He was disposed to treat them with high condescension, as
incapable of appreciating the lofty philosophy of life by which he was
sustained. Meanwhile, he gloated over the loot of the night.

"Them things is wurt' mints; they's more valible than di'mon's, them
things is! Only eddicated folks knows about 'em. They's fer emp'rors and
kings t' set up in their palaces, an' men goes nutty jes' hankerin' fer
'em. The pigtails made 'em thousand o' years back, an' th' secret died
with 'em. They ain't never goin' to be no more jugs like them settin'
right there. An' them two ole sports give up their business jes' t' chase
things like them. They's some folks goes loony about chickens, an' hosses,
an' fancy dogs, but this here kind o' collectin' 's only fer millionaires.
They's more difficult t' pick than a lucky race-hoss. They's barrels o'
that stuff in them houses, that looked jes' as good as them there, but
nowheres as valible."

An informal lecture on Chinese ceramics before daylight on Christmas
morning was not to the liking of the anxious and nerve-torn Mary and
Humpy. They brought The Hopper down from his lofty heights to practical
questions touching his plans, for the disposal of Shaver in the first
instance, and the ceramics in the second. The Hopper was singularly
unmoved by their forebodings.