“Why didn’t you?” says he.
“Anyhow,” says I, “I’ll bet you wasn’t as scairt as I was.”
“I was scairter,” says he. “And you’ve mauled me fierce.”
“I hain’t what you could call neat and in order,” says I.
And then somebody touched me on the shoulder and says, “Keep s-s-still.” It was Mark Tidd.
We searched all over that floor in the dark and didn’t find a thing. Then we started up to the kind of attic above, and just as we was going up the stairs we saw a flash of light again. It was up there.
Well, there wasn’t anything to do but go along, so we did. Binney stumbled on the steps and made a noise like two freight-engines coming together. The light skittered just once, and then went out, but we heard a rustling that sounded sort of like rats running inside partition walls. You know that kind of a sound.
There wasn’t any use being cautious any more, so we jumped up there as fast as we could, and went plunging every which way in the dark. I guess we felt over every inch of that place, but not a thing did we find. We even went down to the office and got some matches and searched with them. But not a hide or a hair of a magician or anybody else did we discover—not until we were just ready to give it up. Then Mark stooped over and picked up something.
“Any of you d-d-drop this?” says he.
We all looked at it. It was one of them curved-bladed pruning-knives. It didn’t belong to any of us.