Bowser--from behind his hand.

One night Muffles was awakened by a stone thrown at his bedroom window.
He went downstairs and found two men in slouch hats; one had a black
carpet-bag. They talked some time together, and the three went down into
the cellar. When they came up the bag was empty.

The next morning one of those spider-wheeled buggies, driven by one of
the silk hat and pearl-buttoned gentlemen, accompanied by a friend,
stopped at the main gate. When they drove away they carried the contents
of the black carpet-bag stowed away under the seat.

The following day, about ten o'clock in the morning, a man in a derby
hat and with a pair of handcuffs in his outside pocket showed Muffles a
paper he took from his coat, and the two went off to the city. When
Muffles returned that same night--I had heard he was in trouble and
waited for his return--he nodded to me with a smile, and said:

"It's all right. Pipes went bail."

He didn't stop, but walked through to the back room. There he put his
arms around his wife. She had sat all day at the window watching for his
return, so Bowser told me.


II

One crisp, cool October day, when the maples blazed scarlet and the
Bronx was a band of polished silver and the hoar-frost glistened in the
meadows, I turned into the road that led to the Shady Side. The outer