He rots the tree as ivy would.”
“I think,” said Joan, thoughtfully, “it is the End of the World.”
“But where are the police?” wailed her cousin. “They don’t seem to be anywhere about since they wore those fezzes. We shall be murdered or–”
Three thundering and measured blows shook the decorative wood panelling at the end of the wing; as if admittance were demanded with the club of a giant. Enid remembered that she had thought Joan’s little blow energetic, and shuddered. Both the girls stared at the stars and moons and suns blazoned on that sacred wall that leapt and shuddered under the strokes of the doom.
Then the sun fell from Heaven, and the moon and stars dropped down and were scattered about the Persian carpet; and by the opening of the end of the world, Patrick Dalroy came in, carrying a mandolin.
CHAPTER XXV
THE FINDING OF THE SUPERMAN
“I’VE brought you a little dog,” said Mr. Dalroy, introducing the rampant Quoodle. “I had him brought down here in a large hamper labelled ‘Explosives,’ a title which appears to have been well selected.”
He had bowed to Lady Enid on entering and taken Joan’s hand with the least suggestion that he wanted to do something else with it; but he resolutely resumed his conversation, which was on the subject of dogs.
“People who bring back dogs,” he said, “are always under a cloud of suspicion. Sometimes it is hideously hinted that the citizen who brings the dog back with him is identical with the citizen who took the dog away with him. In my case, of course, such conduct is inconceivable. But the returners of dogs, that prosperous and increasing class, are also accused,” he went on, looking straight at Joan, with blank blue eyes, “of coming back for a Reward. There is more truth in this charge.”