“Now comes it,” says I to myself, “and I’m caught like a rabbit in a trap.”
“But,” says I to myself, “they don’t suspect I’m here, and maybe they won’t come in.”
And then I got an idea. It wasn’t a very high class idea, but it was the best I had in stock. I says to myself that I’d take them by surprise, and maybe be able to get away in the dark. I knew they were there, and they didn’t know I was there. So I went close to the door and waited. In a minute somebody pushed it open cautious, and was just about to come in. Then I sprung my surprise. I stepped back and opened up my mouth, and let out the most blood-curdling scream I could dig out of my innards. It was a jim dandy. And then, right in the middle of the scream I rushed at the figure in the door and butted it in the stomach and out I went. It would have been fine, but there was another figure behind the first one, and I ran into it, and we both went down together, clawing and scrapping to beat the band.
Well, sir, I don’t remember very clear just what went on for a minute or so, except that I was as busy as a buzz saw, and the other fellow knew it. Then something came down ker-wallop on top of both of us and knocked the wind clean out of me. I was done. I couldn’t have lifted the tip of a finger. You know how it is when your wind is knocked out and you can’t breathe, and you feel as if you never would breathe again. I was like that.
The weight rolled off of me, and I heard somebody say, “What in tunket is this?”
I couldn’t speak, but I knew that voice, and it made me so sore I wanted to bite. I was coming around enough so I could kick, and I just reached out with my foot and tunked his shin.
“Outch,” he says, and it was Catty Atkins!
“Serves—you—right,” says I, with the little breath I’d gotten back. “Wish I’d kicked you on the chin.”
“If it isn’t Wee-wee,” says he. “Quick. Pull him into the house.”
They dragged me in, and by that time I was feeling pretty good again.