Scarcely had he finished speaking when a portion of the cover came off, and at once a big gray rat leaped full into the lawyer's startled face. With a yell of fright Rackshaw let go the box, dropped the hammer, and staggered back. Trying to recover himself, he came into sudden contact with the dog and was hurled over a chair full length upon the floor. He endeavored to get up, and had reached a sitting position when Pedro again landed on him like a catapult. Had a cyclone burst upon that room the confusion could not have been more appalling. Frantic squeals of terrified rats and the snapping yelps of the pursuing dog mingled with the crash of falling chairs and tables. It was, as the lawyer afterwards expressed it, "hell let loose."
When Rackshaw was at length able to crawl to his knees he looked around the disordered room. Pedro was still cavorting here and there, first after one rat and then another. Whittles was nowhere to be seen.
"Hen, where are you?" the lawyer called.
A groan from beneath one of the tables was the only response.
"Are you hurt, Hen?"
"Dying," was the feeble reply. "For God's sake, call off that dog!"
To "call off the dog" was easier to order than to do. Rackshaw staggered to his feet, and shouted wildly to the excited brute. But the louder he called, and the more furiously he swore, the more frantic did the greyhound become. The rats had turned his brain, and he was a crazy fool. Around and around the room he dashed, clearing chairs and tables with great bounds, but not a rat could he catch.
Rackshaw started for the door. If he could get it open it would give the rats an avenue of escape. He was but part way across the room when Pedro, attempting to pass through the legs of an overturned chair, stuck fast. With a howl he tried to extricate himself, but in vain. He had now something more than rats to think of, and furiously he threshed from side to side, breaking chairs, and damaging everything with which he came into contact.
The lawyer was now desperate. The perspiration poured down his face, while the shouts and curses he hurled at the dog were of no avail. With a savage yank he tore open the door, and the dog, catching sight of the opening, bounded for it like a tank going into battle.
It so happened that just at this critical moment the expressman had stepped to the door, carrying in his hands the long-expected box which he had overlooked. He saw the grotesque object bounding toward him, and before he had time to move aside, Pedro, now dragging the battered chair, dashed full upon him. With a yell of terror, he fell backwards, dropping as he did so the precious box upon the pavement. There was a sudden crash of bottles, and a liberal flow of spirits such as the town had never before known.