And now, in the midst of these reflections, there came this uproar of shrieks and tolling bells. It was too much. It was not at all what he was accustomed to.
So he proceeded to enter a protest against the whole business.
The donkey raised his head!
He elevated his tail!
He spread his legs apart so as to gain a firmer attitude!
Then he burst forth:
He! haw! He! Haw!
Heeeeee! Haaaaaaw!
He! haw! He! haw!
He haaaaaaaaaw!
Heeeeeeeeeee!
Haaaaaaaaaaaaw!
Heeee! Haaaww!
HE HAAAAW!!!=
The noise of that terrific bray, as it sounded out, burst forth close by Pat. He was on one side of the partition. The donkey was on the other. He was just about seizing the cord so as to give another pull to the tongue of the bell, when there arose this unexpected, this tremendous interruption. Whether Pat had ever heard the bray of a donkey before mattered not at that moment. He certainly had never before heard a donkey, and an injured donkey too, at midnight, in a garret, close beside him, pour forth, so suddenly, and so terribly, and so deafeningly, such accumulated woes.
Had a cannon suddenly exploded close by Pat’s elbow, he could not have been more utterly overwhelmed.
He sprang back. For a moment he stood paralyzed. Then he jumped at the door. He tore it open. He leaped down the stairs. Bart’s room was at the bottom. He opened the door, burst in, and banged it, and locked it behind him.