“Come out of the closet, Fritz! Come out of the closet!”
No notice was taken of the appeal.
“Oh, you little simpleton! You must come out of the closet! I didn’t tell you to go in and shut the door behind you! Don’t open the bottle till you have come out.”
The vigorous thumping of the bag and its contents upon the floor told that the tragic end had not yet been achieved, and the miauling continued so long that Melville did not observe when it at last grew less violent; though his entreaties to his little cousin were unceasing.
“O Fritzy, dear little Fritz! Come out of it quick! All the doors and windows are shut and I cannot help you! Fritz—Fritz!”
Melville paused to listen and to breathe; but the sounds had all ceased behind that fast shut door, and the sickening odor which stole through the crevices told him that his cries had come too late.
A moment later, and his own consciousness seemed to leave him, as the terrible significance of his own work came full upon him.
CHAPTER XIII.
If Fritz had not heard the appeals which the frantic Melville made to him, they had reached other ears, and summoned the help which the crippled lad was so impotent to render.
Rosetta Perkins, “mistress of the interior,” as Octave called her when Aunt Ruth had reported her mother’s decision concerning the household heads, during the sea-shore sojourn,—Rosetta Perkins had come to Melville’s quarter of the house for the express purpose of hearing his capricious desires concerning his supper.