He had hardly uttered the words when the secretary reappeared.
“Where are all the servants?” he cried, angrily. “I want some one to come and brush my clothes.”
“Stand aside!” shouted Ben. “She’ll run right back.”
But the secretary did not understand what was meant, and turned haughtily upon the speaker, totally unconscious of the fact that he was exactly behind the breech of the piece, whose recoil might have produced fatal results.
It was no time for uttering warnings, and Roy knew it. He glanced once at the tiny sparkling going on at the touch-hole of the gun, and sprang right at the secretary, driving him backward and falling heavily with him to the ground.
It was none too soon, for the gun went off with a tremendous roar, leaping up from the paving and running back on its low wheels right over the spot where the secretary had just stood.
“Guns is guns, and always was,” said Ben, very grimly; “and them as has to do with ’em wants to know all their little ways. I have know’d a man’s arm took off by the recoil, and, if you don’t take care, their breeches is as dangerous to them as fires ’em as is their muzzles.”
“Hurt, sir?” cried Roy, offering his hand after gaining his own feet, ready to help the tutor to rise.
Master Pawson made no reply, neither did he take the extended hand, but rose and walked away limping, going right down through the pleasaunce so as to reach his own room without having to pass through the corridor.
“Bit rusty, I s’pose, sir,” said Ben, quietly.