We could hear the two men shaking the door, and we had no means of knowing just how weak it was, never having seriously tampered with it ourselves.
It was then that Noël suddenly went quite mad. I think it was due to something old nurse had read to us at breakfast that day about a boy of eight who played on the fiddle, and composed pieces of music. Affected young ass!
He darted from us into the middle of the room, where the two intruders could see him, and said:
'Don't break down the door! The villains may return any moment and destroy you. Fetch the police!'
The surprised outsiders could find no word but 'Er?'
'You are surprised to see me here,' said Noël, not taking any notice of the furious looks of the rest of us. 'I am an infant prodigy. I play the violin at concerts; I play it beautifully. They take me to London to play in a closed carriage, so that I can't tell anyone my woes on the way.'
'My poor child!' said one of the outsiders; 'tell us all about it. We must rescue you.'
'Born of poor but honest parents,' said Noël—and this was what nurse had read out to us—'my musical talent early manifested itself on a toy violin, the gift of a devoted great-aunt. Torn from my home——I say, do fetch the police. If the monsters who live on my violin-playing return and find you here, they will brain you with the tools of their trade, and I shall be lost.'
'Their trade?' said one of them. 'What trade?'
'They are coiners,' said Noël, 'as well as what they do to me to make me play.'