He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of Tosti's "Goodbye."
How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know: nor can one say how long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert, there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun, and, when he heard that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar to him in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight came the recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to Windles, playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had concealed himself inside this very suit and had not only baffled Eustace through a long summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a decline by booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy days! He leaped at the suit of armour. The helmet was a tight fit, but he managed to get his head into it at last, and the body of the thing was quite roomy.
"Thank heaven!" said Sam.
He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need.
Smith, the bulldog, well satisfied with the way things had happened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments.
4
He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely. There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in his pyjamas and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them all impartially.
Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.
"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!"
"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?"