Slowly and wrathfully, Billy Walker made his laborious retreat on hands and knees backward from the scene of his exploits. His friends, startled by the noise behind them, had managed to face about, and to hurry toward him, and now they stood, one behind the other, peering at the prostrate one; at first in amazement over his presence there at all; then, in alarm over his condition; finally, reassured, in hilarious enjoyment of the catastrophe that had befallen him. Their presence and comments did not tend to soothe the outraged feelings of the victim as he wearily crept, retrograde, into the closet, and at last scrambled to his feet in the hallway. Jake was so discreet as to say nothing at all, which reticence gave him a place for all time in the unhappy man’s esteem, despite the fact that the disaster had come from accepting the proffered candle. The others, unfortunately, were not so restrained, and their remarks came near to offending Billy Walker; certainly, they increased his exasperation against the event that had made him ridiculous. But, after a little, he contrived a diversion:
“I hope that plastering didn’t hurt anybody when it fell,” he exclaimed, of a sudden.
Jake shook his head.
“Nope!” he declared. “Thar wa’n’t nobody downstairs, I guess, Marthy’s out at the back, lookin’ arter her flower garden, and thar wa’n’t nobody else round when we come up.”
“But there was someone in the room downstairs,” Billy persisted. “I heard a cry, just as my fists went through the plastering, and then, along with the other noise, I heard the steps of someone running out.”
“Was it a man or a woman?” Roy asked.
Billy shook his head.
“Really, I haven’t the least idea,” he answered, “You see, I was pretty well occupied at the moment with my own affairs, and I didn’t pay a particle of attention to anything else.”
“Anyhow, I don’t see that it matters much,” Saxe declared. “It’s plain that you didn’t hurt anyone seriously, or we’d have heard of it before this; it didn’t wound Mrs. Dustin, or Chris, for here they both come now.” He waved his hand toward the stairs, and the others turned to see the two hurrying up.
Mrs. Dustin was voluble, and mightily relieved to learn that her precious Jake had suffered no harm. The mild, black eyes of Mrs. West’s servant twinkled with amused excitement, when he was informed as to the nature of the happening. They, too, were puzzled on hearing that someone had been in the music-room at the time of the accident.