He turned on his heel and said, "We'll see if we're to be robbed by shop-boy cads, or any of your young thieving friends.

I'll complain to the police, and let them know you know all about it, you two." "I don't know anything about it," said I, feeling it incumbent on me to make a remark, "except that I don't think a red bone collar-stud costs ten shillings." This occasioned another laugh at the expense of Mr Horncastle, who retorted, "You're a companion of thieves and blackguards, that's what you are.

I'll have you kicked out of the house." And as if to suit the action to the word, he advanced towards me and aimed a vehement kick at my person.
I had just time to dodge the blow, but as I did so something knocked against my hand.

Fancy my astonishment when, stooping to pick it up, I found that it was the missing red bone collar-stud, which had dropped into the leg of its stately owner's trousers, and which this kick had unearthed from its hiding-place! The laugh was now all against the discomfited Horncastle.

Even those who had at first been disposed to side with him against Jack and me could not resist the merriment which this revelation occasioned, particularly when the stud, which Horncastle at once identified, was discovered to be an ordinary painted bone article, with a good deal of the red worn off, of the kind usually sold in the streets for a penny.
Jack and I had at least the relief of feeling that so far we ourselves were the only sufferers by our hospitality to our little ragamuffin acquaintance.
But more was to come of this adventure, as the reader will see..