"Your Leddyship, your Leddyship, do not believe this woman. She lies! She would ruin me!! I will have her arrested!!! Fetch the police!!!! I demand the police!!!!!"
Lady Knob-Kerrick turned towards the door at the entrance of which stood her footman.
"John, blow your police-whistle," she ordered, practical in all things.
John disappeared. A moment later the raucous sound of a police-whistle was heard in continuous blast.
"That's right!" shouted the woman, "that's right! Blow your police-whistle! Blow your pinkish brains out!" Then with a sudden change she turned to Mr. MacFie. "Oh, Andy, Andy! You never was the same man after you 'ad that drink in you down in the country at the temperance fête. Don't you remember how you laughed with me about that Old Bird being washed out of her carriage?"
"It's a lee! It's a lee! A damnable lee!" shrieked Mr. MacFie.
Mr. MacFie was interrupted in his protestations by a sudden rush of feet, and the hall began to fill with a wild-eyed, dishevelled crowd. Mothers carrying their babies, or pulling along little children. Everyone inviting everyone else to come in. One woman was in hysterics. Lady Knob-Kerrick stared at them in wonder.
"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of no one in particular.
"It's a raid, mum, a raid; it's a raid," sobbed a woman, leading two little children with the hand and holding a baby in her disengaged arm.
Lady Knob-Kerrick paled. "A raid!" she faltered.