curved knives."

Now Gwendolyn recalled a certain terror-inspiring man with a long belted
coat and a cap with a shiny visor. It was not his height that made her
fear him, for her father was fully as tall; and it was not his
brass-buttoned coat, or the dark, piercing eyes under the visor. She
feared him because Jane had often threatened her with his coming; and,
secondly, because he wore, hanging from his belt, a cudgel--long and
heavy and thick. How that cudgel glistened in the sunlight as it swung
to and fro by a thong!

"Worse than a--a p'liceman?" she faltered.

"Policeman? _Yes!_"

"Than the p'liceman that's--that's always hanging around here?"

Now Jane giggled, and blushed as red as her hair. "Hush!" she chided.

Thomas poked a teasing finger at her. "Haw! Haw!" he laughed. "There's
other people that's noticed a policeman hangin' round. _He's_ a dandy,
he is!--_not_. He let that old hand organ man give him a black eye."

"Pooh!" retorted Jane. "You know how much I care about that policeman!
It's only that I like to have him handy for just such times as this."

But Gwendolyn was dwelling on the newly discovered scourge of moneyed
children. "What would the kidnapers do?" she inquired.

"The kidnapers," promptly answered Jane, "would take you and shut you up