“Papa! They’ve caught the Dragon. Oh why are you taking your bath at such a time?”
“Taking my grandmother!” Sir Godfrey retorted in great dudgeon. But he let the rope go, and the shower stopped running. “Go to your room,” he added. “I told you to lock your door. This Dragon——”
“But he’s caught, papa,” cried Elaine through the key-hole. “Don’t you hear me? Geoff——somebody has got him.”
“How now?” said the Baron, unlocking the door and peering out. “What’s all this?”
His dressing-gown was extremely damp, for stray spouts from the shower-bath had squirted over him. Fortunately, the breast-plate underneath had kept him dry as far as it went.
“Hum,” he said, after he had listened to the voice in the cellar. “This is something to be cautious over.”
“If the people of this house do not come soon to bear witness of my conquest,” said the voice in tones of thunder, “I’ll lead this Dragon through every chamber of it myself.”
“Damnum absque injuria!” shrieked Sir Godfrey, and uttered much more horrible language entirely unfit for general use. “What the Jeofailes does the varlet mean by threatening an Englishman in his own house? I should like to know who lives here? I should like to know who I am?”
The Baron flew down the entry in a rage. He ran to his bedside and pulled his sword from under the pillows where he always kept it at night with his sun-dial.
