“We can't stay here all night,” said the kid to Peaches. “He's got a point.”

“That's right!” said the highwayman urgently. “You can't stay here all night!”

“That's right,” said a chorus of voices from his trousers, “we can't stay here all night!”

Maurice sighed, and stuck his head out of the window again. “O-K,” he said. “This is what we're going to do. You're going to stand very still looking straight in front of you, and you won't try any tricks because if you do I've only got to say the word—”

“Don't say the word!” said the highwayman even more urgently.

“Right,” said Maurice, “and we'll take your horse as a punishment and you can have the coach because that'd be stealing and only thieves are allowed to steal. Fair enough?”

“Anything you say!” said the highwayman, then he thought about this and added hurriedly, “But please don't say anything!” He kept staring straight ahead. He saw the boy and the cat get out of the coach. He heard various sounds behind him as they took his horse. And he thought about his sword. All right, he was going to get a whole mail coach out of this deal, but there was such a thing as professional pride.

“All right,” said the voice of the cat after a while. “We're all going to leave now, and you've got to promise not to move until we're gone. Promise?”

“You have my word as a thief,” said the highwayman, slowly lowering a hand to his sword.

“Right. We certainly trust you,” said the voice of the cat.

The man felt his trousers lighten as the rats poured out and scampered away, and he heard the jingle of harness. He waited a moment, then spun around, drew his sword and ran forward.

Slightly forward, in any case. He wouldn't have hit the ground so hard if someone hadn't tied his bootlaces together.