But I knowed better.  I had it out of there before they was half-way down stairs.  I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I could get a chance to do better.  I judged I better hide it outside of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the house a good ransacking:  I knowed that very well.  Then I turned in, with my clothes all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted to, I was in such a sweat to get through with the business.  By and by I heard the king and the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was going to happen.  But nothing did.

So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder.