There was a pile of beer barrels in the largest cellar, and it was H.O. who said, "Why not play 'King of the Castle?'"
So we did. We had a most refreshing game. It was exactly like Denny to be the one who slipped down behind the barrels, and did not break a single one of all his legs or arms.
"No," he cried, in answer to our anxious inquiries. "I'm not hurt a bit, but the wall here feels soft—at least not soft—but it doesn't scratch your nails like stone does, so perhaps it's the door of a secret dungeon or something like that."
"Good old Dentist!" replied Oswald, who always likes Denny to have ideas of his own, because it was us who taught him the folly of white-mousishness.
"It might be," he went on, "but these barrels are as heavy as lead, and much more awkward to collar hold of."
"Couldn't we get in some other way?" Alice said. "There ought to be a subterranean passage. I expect there is if we only knew."
Oswald has an enormous geographical bump in his head. He said—
"Look here! That far cellar, where the wall doesn't go quite up to the roof—that space we made out was under the dining-room—I could creep under there. I believe it leads into behind this door."
"Get me out! Oh do, do get me out, and let me come!" shouted the barrel-imprisoned Dentist from the unseen regions near the door.
So we got him out by Oswald lying flat on his front on the top barrel, and the Dentist clawed himself up by Oswald's hands while the others kept hold of the boots of the representative of the house of Bastable, which, of course, Oswald is, whenever Father is not there.