"He's in too many pieces," said Bob doubtfully. "Guess we'll have to get a dustpan and brush."
Mr. Peabody and the two men went grumbling back to bed, Peabody taking the gun for safekeeping, but Mrs. Peabody sent Bob down to the kitchen for the articles he mentioned, declaring that Betty should not have to finish the night in a room with a dead rat.
"If there was another bed made up, I'd move you into it," she said. "But I haven't an extra place ready."
Betty had pinned up her hair and put on her slippers before Bob came back, and had put her best pink crepe dressing gown around Mrs. Peabody, who presented an incongruous vision so attired. Bob looked at Betty in admiration. With her tumbled dark hair and pink cheeks and blue gown and slippers, the boy thought her the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
"I didn't want to tell you—don't look," he whispered, getting down on his knees to sweep out the remains of the slaughtered rat, "but the buckshot hit two olive bottles, and there's some mess here under your bed. I guess the rat was after the crackers."
Bob carried down the dead rat and mopped up the brine from the olives and threw out the debris, making several trips downstairs without a murmur. Finally it was all cleaned up, and they could go back to their rooms and finish the remainder of the night in probable peace.
"If you hear a noise"—Bob could not resist this parting shot—"run down and grab the dinner bell. We'll hear it just as quick, and you might shoot the potted ham full of bullets next time."
Betty did not sleep well, and once she woke, sure that she had heard loud talking and shouts. She thought the noise came from the attic.
"Lieson had the nightmare after your shindy," announced Bob at the breakfast table. "He suddenly began shouting and got me by the throat, declaring that if I didn't pay him every cent I owed him he'd kill me. Wapley had to come and pull him away, or I don't know but he would have choked the breath out of me."
"I had a bad dream," said Lieson sullenly.