It soon seemed absurd to await him in a state of wakefulness, but his stealthy tap on the window awoke them readily enough.

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.