Mr. Puddlebox then raised his chest upon his arms, made a face of great agony as the released pressure caused his stomach to feel the heat more fiercely, then with a stupendous convulsion hurled himself about and gave first a very loud cry as the new quarter of his person took the fire and then many wriggles and a succession of groans as with great courage he pressed his seat down upon the smouldering embers. Lower he wriggled, still groaning. "Ah," groaned Mr. Puddlebox. "Arp. Ooop. Erp. Blink. Eep. Erps. Ooop. Hell!" He then felt about him with his hands, and with the fingers of one finding what he sought and finding it uncommonly hot, brought his fingers to his mouth with a bitter yelp; fumbled again most cautiously, wriggled yet more determinedly, groaned anew, yet at longer intervals, and presently, a beaming smile overspreading his countenance, raised an arm aloft and announced triumphantly: "Out!"
"Out!" repeated Mr. Puddlebox, rising and beating smoulder from his waistcoat with one hand and from his trousers with the other.
"You were devilish plucky," said Mr. Wriford. "I can't help laughing now it's over, you know. But it was a narrow squeak. You were quick getting down, and you saved both our lives by hanging on like that."
"Why, you were quick, too, boy," said Mr. Puddlebox. "You were quick after me as a flash—and plucky. I'd not have done it alone. You're coming on, boy; you're coming on. You're unspooking every minute."
"I did nothing," said Mr. Wriford. But he was secretly glad at the praise, and this, joined to his earlier determination to care nothing for anybody nor for what happened to him, spurred him to give eager aid to what Mr. Puddlebox now proposed.
"I am parboiled in front," said Mr. Puddlebox, finishing his beating of himself, "and I am underdone behind; but the fire is out, and now it is for us to get out. Loony, that was a damned, cold-blooded villain that came here to burn us, and a damned ugly villain as ever I saw, and I will challenge any man to show me an uglier. There is a lesson to be taught him, my loony, and there is compensation to be paid by him; and this he shall be taught and shall pay before I am an hour older in sin."
With this Mr. Puddlebox marched very determinedly up the ladder which he had descended very abruptly, and preceded Mr. Wriford across the top of the hay to the point where this was nearest met by the sloping roof. "It's all very fine," doubted Mr. Wriford, addressing the determined back as they made their way, "it's all very fine, Puddlebox, but mind you we look like getting ourselves in a devil of a fix if we go messing round this chap, whoever he is. He's probably the farmer. If he is it looks as if he wanted to fire his barn to get the insurance; and it'll be an easy thing for him, and a jolly good thing, to shove the blame on us. That's what I think."
"Loony," returned Mr. Puddlebox, arrived under the roof and facing him, "you think too much, and that's just what's the matter with you, as I've told you before. To begin with, his barn has not been burnt, and that's just where we've got him. We are heroes, my loony, and I am a burnt hero, and some one's got to pay for it."
Mr. Wriford's reply to this was first a look of sharp despair upon his face and then to raise his fists and drum them fiercely upon his head.
"Why, boy! boy!" cried Mr. Puddlebox and caught Mr. Wriford's hands and held them. "Why, what to the devil is that for?"