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seats. They lacked collars and proper headwear—the smaller of the two wore a jockey’s cap of the style affected by ballists—and they lacked tickets, certainly. I might have admired their pluck if not for the fact of the smaller one clutching my umbrella under his arm.
    “You, boys!” I called.
    They spun and stared at my sidewise countenance suspended below the benches like a holiday bulb. The smaller looked down guiltily at the umbrella, spoke urgently to the other, tugged the jockey cap lower to hide his face, and poised for flight.
    “I ain’t the cops,” I said assuringly. “Come over here.”
    The larger boy yanked the umbrella from the smaller, and with wary steps moved a bit closer.
    “That’s mine,” I told him. “I’m obliged to you for rescuing it.” We studied each other. I could see that he was a gap-toothed, freckled, filthy specimen. After some deliberation, he seemed to reach a conclusion about me and thumbed his grubby nose.
    “Why, pickle your devilish hide!” It came out louder than I’d intended, and I heard Mrs. Ashcroft’s shocked gasp. With a motion worthy of Barnum’s India Rubber Man, I reached back and fished out my billfold, jostling Ashcroft as I did so. “Boys?” My voice oozing with trust, I said, “That umbrella you’re holding? It’s a paying proposition to bring it up to me.”
    “How much?”
    I waved a banknote. “A whole dollar.”
    “Let’s see yer bill,” the boy said. “Drop it down.”
    “
That
old cat won’t fight.” I snorted at his impertinence. “Hurry that umbrella up here, and the cash is yours.”
    The boy consulted his smaller mate, who shook his head; they seemed to argue. “How can we know you’ll pay?” demanded the bigger one, twisting the umbrella in his grimy hands. The other hung back, his face shadowed.
    “I
told
you so.”
    “
He sed, she sed
,” the boy intoned mockingly.
    “It’s a keepsake!” I took a long breath to quell my anger. “It’s valuable—but only to me. I’m square as a dry-goods box. I’ll give you the money.”
    The boy cocked his head. “Give it first.”
    “Confound your polysyllabled insolence!” Recoiling, I knocked my head against the edge of the bench and swore with some spirit.
    “If you PLEASE!” said Ashcroft.
    I stared down at my umbrella, seeing in my mind’s eye the applauding London banqueters, and with a regretful sigh I released the dollar. Curious how the stripling scoundrel, with his ragged knickers,
looked
enough like my boyhood Hannibal companions—indeed, something in his thin frame, reddish hair, and freckled features whispered to my memory of myself—but this boy conducted his affairs like the meanest Yankee trader. The bill fell into his clutching hand and disappeared.
    By now others were bending down to see the cause of the disturbance. Holmes’s sharp features appeared a row above me. Had he moved to find room or was he standing on his hands? The boys conferred below, the smaller tugging at the umbrella before once more retreating to the shadows.
    “What’s the trouble?” I demanded.
    A burst of booing lifted away most of the other faces.
    “Come up here and collect your cash!”
    The boy lifted his head. “Want more,” he said succinctly.
    “Why, you sawed-off, infernal, perfidious—” My endearments were overwhelmed by new eruptions of crowd displeasure. “It’s too many for me,” I told him when it subsided, “as to exactly
why
you crave a prince’s ransom to return my possession!”
    “ ‘Cuz of the risk,” he answered. “We get pinched for no tickets, they’ll clap us in the calaboose.” At this the smaller boy made another failing try at the umbrella.
    “Okay, two dollars.” The sawed-off swindler would see me reduced to bacon and beans. I reached for my billfold but did not find another small-denomination bill. “Holmes!” I said, knowing better than to ask that money-squeezing ass Ashcroft, “lend me a dollar—I’ll beat this game