A Lucky Magpie 167 



the ticking of Miss Pringle's neat-faced clock. 

 1 1 was half-past four by that clock, I remember 

 my tea-time, and the time when I usually fed 

 Mag. The thought rushed into my head, if I 

 am taken up what will Mag do ? How am I to 

 tell Nelly? 



"They knocked at the door, which Miss 

 Pringle unlocked. The policeman put the money 

 he had found on the desk in front of her, and put 

 his hand on my shoulder. The cook sobbed, the 

 clock ticked ; no one said anything ; Miss Pringle 

 looked away from me, and I really think she was 

 sorry. 



" At last she looked up and opened her tight 

 lips, but what she was going to say I never knew, 

 for at that moment I made a bolt through the 

 window, upsetting the neat geraniums in their 

 pots, and tumbling headlong into the flower-bed 

 which I had tidied in the morning, I scudded 

 down the garden into the yard, over the gate into 

 the paddock, through the hedge, and away at full 

 speed in the direction of Nelly's cottage. 



1 I can recollect all quite clearly now, up to the 

 moment when I saw the policeman running after 



