Thanks to the incessant sting of his finger and the maddening exasperation of the predicament he was in, Carrington was nearly frantic.
"Oh," he exclaimed, "I'll have to disturb them for that oil sooner or later, so I'd better do it right off."
With that he started for the boss's door, trailing the hose after him. His heart thumped as he rang the bell. Standing in close to the wall, he kept the nozzle behind his back, thinking it better to explain before displaying his appendage.
There was a sound of slippered feet, and, from the opposite direction, a sound of slipping hose. The door was unlocked, and the remainder of the canvas-and-rubber coil that had kept back the water unrolled down upon the floor.
"Who's there?" growled Mr. Stockbridge, arrayed in a bath-robe and squinting out into the dimly lighted corridor without his glasses.
Mortification seemed to paralyze Carrington's speech. Bringing the nozzle forward abjectly, so that Mr. Stockbridge could see his plight, he faltered:
"I—"
At that moment his finger was shot like a bullet from a gun, and the ensuing stream of water caught Mr. Stockbridge squarely in the throat.
Simultaneously, a supreme inspiration came to Carrington.
"I'm a fireman," he cried in a disguised voice. "Wake your family at once!"