“There is no one here,” he muttered. “What could it have been? Imagination could not so deceive me!”
As he glanced round the room, to his surprise, he saw that several of the articles which it contained were displaced; and his apprehensions were still further increased by seeing on the floor several prints of feet, of a character he could not define, and was quite certain he had never seen before.
Scarcely had he time to think upon these strange and startling appearances, when a low growl met his ears, and immediately upon that a voice exclaimed.—
“There, now, you’ve done it! Oh, cuss you, Popsy.”
Gray gave a jump to the door, and he could scarcely believe his eyes when a man’s head appeared from beneath the sofa, and confronted him with a mixed expression of effrontery and apprehension.
“How—came—you—here?” gasped Gray.
“Popsy come out,” was the man’s only reply to his interrogatory; and, to Gray’s surprise, an immense shaggy bear made its appearance from the same place of concealment.
“Who are you?” cried Jacob Gray.
“Why don’t you answer the gentleman, you brute?” said the man, dealing the bear a heavy blow with his fist; “affectionate ways is lost upon you, that they is—”
“How dare you come here?” cried Gray.