This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BINDLE MAKES A MISTAKE
259

many years, had presented problems; but Bindle had overcome them by putting in the coal-cellar everything that he could not crowd in a lumber room at the top of the house, or distribute through the rest of the rooms.

"Seemed to have moved in an 'urry," coughed Wilkes; "I never see sich a lot of truck in all me life."

"P'r'aps they owed the rent," suggested Huggles.

"'Uggles, 'Uggles," remonstrated Bindle with a grin, "I'm surprised at you. 'Cos your family 'as shot the moon for years—'Uggles, I'm pained."

Bindle duly returned the key to the police-station, put up the vans, and himself saw that the horses were made comfortable for the night. Whenever in charge of a job he always made this his own particular duty.


II

At six o'clock on the following afternoon a railway omnibus drew up at the West Kensington police-station. In it were Mr. and Mrs. Railton-Rogers, seven little Rogerses, a nursemaid, and what is known in suburbia as a cook-general.

After some difficulty, Mr. Rogers, a bald-