He rose and lit the candle which stood upon a small table in the center of the room. Then, in his stocking feet, he noiselessly approached the door.
He turned the key in the lock and opened the door leading into Bernard’s room raising the candle he drew near the bed and looked to see the recumbent figure of his young traveling companion. To his intense surprise the bed was unoccupied.
“What does it mean?” he asked himself in bewilderment. “Where can be the boy be?”
His expression of perplexity was fast succeeded by one of rage as he came to the conclusion that Bernard, on discovering the absence of the bureau, had deliberately resolved to abandon the room.
“He is the most impudent and audacious boy I ever met,” reflected the professor. “I don’t wonder Mr. McCracken calls him ‘a bad lot.’”
Of course there was nothing to do but return to his own chamber. But his exit was not to be a peaceful one. He had scarcely started for the door when there was a rushing sound, and a huge dog sprang forward and fastened his teeth in the professor’s leg. Such an attack under the circumstances would have startled even a brave man, and Professor Puffer was not a brave man.
In the indistinct light he could not at once distinguish the figure of his assailant and what it was that had attacked him. He had a suspicion that it was some contrivance of Bernard.
“Let go, or I will kill you!” he yelled.
But his threat produced no effect upon the huge, shaggy dog who had been lying under the bed, and had been aroused by the entrance of Professor Puffer, whom he evidently felt to be an unauthorized intruder and a suspicious character.
As the reader may be as much puzzled as was the professor himself, I will explain that when Bernard opened the door to leave his chamber, the dog, who had been walking through the entry, made his way into it without the notice of the boy. He had stretched himself out under the four poster, and was sleeping the sleep of a thoroughly tired dog when he was aroused by the stealthy entrance of the professor.