Fox immediately returned to the attack as if certain that he was in the right, and knocked at the door sharply.
There was no response but the quick hustlings about the room, from which I, as an attentive listener with my ear close to the key-hole, learned that the inmates were preparing for discovery.
Fox knocked again, this time louder and more persistently than at first.
I now plainly heard Mrs. Winslow ordering Le Compte under the bed among the dust, bandboxes, and unmentionables, at which he protested with innumerable "Sacrés!" But she was relentless, and finally, seeing that he would go no other way, took him up like a recalcitrant cur and flung him under bodily.
Again Fox attacked the door, shook the knob furiously, and knocked loud enough to raise the dead, following it up with: "Say you?—Jones? Why in thunder don't you open the door?"
At this Mrs. Winslow plucked up the courage of desperation, and asked in a loud and injured voice, "Who's there?"
"Why, me, of course; Barker, Jones's partner. I want to see Jones!"
"What Jones do you want?" asked Mrs. Winslow, to get time to think further what to do.
"Jones, of Rochester, of course," yelled Fox. "Two ship-loads of spoiled grain's just come in; don't know what to do with 'em."
"Sink 'em!" responded Mrs. Winslow, breathing freer.