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“Honestly, I think it’s a shame to keep dogs in cages. ”

“So do I. I wouldn’t like to live in no cage. Gee, I read once, it was in a book of stories, there was this man that had been a revolution, and they put him in a cage—oh, yes, it was in China—”

“Oh, I would like to go to China. Let’s go to China!”

“Sure; you betcha. Pirates always go to China, I think they do, and—”

“You don’t suppose we’d have to do any murders or anything nasty like that, do you, Terry, when we’re pirates?”

“Oh, not NOW; they just did that in the Old Days. Now they just stop ships that belong to rich merchants and take silk and all like that, and then they give a lot to the poor—”

“And bleedin’ nice of ’em I calls it!” said a new voice, a dripping and slimy voice behind them, and a filthy hand swooped upon their money.

They looked back, gasping, at a man with a hard little nut of a face under a greasy cap. Instantly the hand had tumbled them off the box, to right and left; a foot in a broken shoe had caught Josephus under the jaw as he leaped up growling; the filthy hand had scooped up every penny of their horde; and the thief was galloping away.

They followed, Josephus followed, but they could not find the robber.

They crouched again on the box. For five minutes they could not quite comprehend that they had no money whatever; nothing for lunch, nothing for movies.

“But nobody can’t down us! We’ll work our way!” flared Terry.

It did not sound too convincing, and Max answered nothing whatever. They started off again silent. By repeatedly asking, they managed to keep going westward and, after their competent mid-morning lunch, they were not too hungry till three o’clock. Terry felt hungry enough then, and Max’s face seemed to him thin and taut.

“I guess we better work for some grub now,” he muttered. “Let’s ask ’em here in this news shop. There’s a nice, kind-looking old lady in there. ”

To the nice, kind-looking old lady, in the dusty recesses of the shop, he confided, “We’re very hungry. Could we do some work for you?” And, winningly: “Your shop needs cleaning. ”

The nice, kind-looking old lady said never a word. She inspected them benevolently. Then she hurled an old paper-bound book at them, and at last she spoke: “Get along with you!”

They asked for work at an ironmonger’s, at a surgery, at a fish market, at three restaurants and coffee stalls, but nowhere did they find it. Toward evening, in a terrifying dimness over unknown streets that stretched endlessly toward nowhere, Terry confessed:

“We can’t do it. We’ll have to give ourselves up. But we’ll study to be tramps and pirates and everything! We’ll be able to do it next time!”

“Yes!”

They tramped on till they found a policeman, a jolly, cheerful policeman.

“And what do you gents want?” he chuckled.

“Please, officer, I’m an American cinema star and this is the King of Slovaria. We’re missing. We should like to give ourselves up, please!”

The policeman roared with joy. “And w’ere is Douglas Fairbanks and the Queen of Rooshia? ‘Ave you ‘idden ’em around the corner?” Seriously: “You lads ought to be ashamed of yourselves, telling such lies! That’s wot comes of the likes of you reading the papers. The King and the Yankee lad, I ‘ear, were captured at ‘Arrow this afternoon. So cut along now. Scat!”

And they scatted, on feet that felt like hot sponges, utterly frightened, overwhelmed by dusk in a forest of petty streets, certain that they would have to go forever till they starved.

“We ought to try to go back to our hotel,” sighed Max.

“But it’s so far. And I don’t believe they’d let us through that gosh-awful gold lobby. ”

“That’s so. ”

As they crept on, they passed hundreds of agitated newspaper posters which told the world that Their Majesties were still lost. The placards gave Terry his idea.

“Lookit! I guess the papers are always hunting for news. I guess maybe if we went to a newspaper office and told who we were, they might help us get back home. Especially if we went to the London office of an American paper. I can talk American good, anyway! And I know the office of the New York Venture is on Fleet Street. ”