For fear of giving offence to Mrs. Fokesell, the carpenter descended the stairs as softly as he could, but he had scarcely reached the passage before the drawing-room bell was rung violently, and Mrs. Fokesell, suspecting that “nuss” had been and taken the man off the job she had set him, hurried up from the kitchen.
The carpenter, who shrewdly imagined that the bell was rung to inquire into the cause of his leaving his work in the drawing-room before it was finished, and being anxious, above all things, not to give offence to the landlady, who was one of his best customers, hastened into the parlour to get Mrs. Quinine’s job over as quickly as possible. With scarcely a thought as to what he was doing, the nervous man rushed saw in hand to the window, where he had left the arm-chair, and perceiving the wooden leg of Major Oldschool protruding from behind the window curtain, he, in the flurry of the moment, mistook it for the upper fore-leg of the chair that he had left lying on its side, and immediately set to work to reduce it one half.
At this moment, the united voices of Fokesell and Pilchers were heard wrangling as the ladies descended the stairs, and the carpenter, in his trepidation, sawed quicker than ever. He had nearly severed the Major’s wooden limb in two, when, to his horror, he felt the leg suddenly withdrawn from his hold, and immediately he saw the curtains thrown on one side, and the face of the angry Major Oldschool glaring fiercely at him.
The man stood for a moment spell-bound, as it suddenly flashed across his mind that he had mistaken a human wooden leg for one of the lower limbs of a chair, and that he had been caught in the act of curtailing it of its proper proportions; and the old Major no sooner discovered the nature of the attack that had been made upon his artificial limb, than he remained transfixed with astonishment at the outrageous audacity of the deed.
The two stared wildly at each other, utterly tongue-tied for the instant; and before the Major could proceed to wreak his vengeance on the man, the carpenter had rushed madly from the room.
The Major, furious at the outrage, jumped from his seat, and was about to give chase to the workman, but no sooner did he place the half-divided limb on the ground, than snap went the wooden member, breaking under his weight, and he was thrown heavily on his side upon the floor; while, at the same time, the carpenter, on turning the corner of the door, ran, in his hurry, full butt against the contending Fokesell and Pilchers, who, being utterly unprepared for so sudden a concussion, were precipitated forcibly to the ground, the carpenter falling with his whole weight upon them; and as he did so, the ladies gave vent to the peculiar sound made by paviours on the descent of their heavy rammers.
It was at this alarming crisis that the family of the Sandboys came down from their respective bed-rooms, all smiles and ribbons, and on the tiptoe of expectation for the long-looked-for peep at the Great Exhibition. The first thing that met their eyes on reaching the passage were the forms of the wretched landlady and nurse buried beneath the heavy body of the jobbing carpenter.
It was no time to stand still and inquire what it all could possibly mean, so the Cimbrians at once proceeded to clear a way to the Major’s room by exhuming the bodies of the ladies from beneath the superficial stratum of the bewildered journeyman; while Jobby, having stepped over the heap, and entered the parlour, shrieked to his terrified parents that the Major was lying prostrate there on the carpet, with his wooden leg broken off sharp at the calf.
Then followed the explanation, with all its disheartening results. Of course it would be impossible for the Major to accompany them to the Exhibition shorn of half his leg, while to get it mended in sufficient time was an equal impossibility. Though Jobby hinted that the glue-pot was on the fire below, the Major felt in no way inclined to trust the maintenance of his perpendicular to so weak a foundation; nor did the several parts admit of being spliced, seeing that the limb would be reduced several inches by the operation; and as there was no such thing as borrowing a wooden leg at a moment’s notice in a neighbourhood that was some miles distant from either Chelsea or Greenwich Hospital, why it was evident that the Major must remain at home until such time as he could get his injuries repaired; for to proceed without him was more than Mr. Sandboys would consent to do.
Accordingly, amid much disappointment and sorrow, the family of the Sandboys once more made up their minds to abandon all hope of seeing the interior of the Crystal Palace, and to return to their native mountains at the earliest possible opportunity.