“Wery considerate of ’em to ’ave a light all ready for us,” he muttered, as he lowered the flame a little, and glided into the kitchen, leaving the Slogger on guard in the scullery. Here he found a variety of gins and snares carefully placed for him—and such as he—by strict orders of Mrs McTougall. Besides a swing-bell on the window shutter—similar to that which had done so little service on the scullery door—there was a coal-scuttle with the kitchen tongs balanced against it and a tin slop-pail in company with the kitchen shovel, and a watering-pan, which—the poker being already engaged to John—was balanced on its own rose and handle, all ready to fail with a touch. These outworks being echelloned along the floor rendered it impossible for an intruder to cross the kitchen in the dark without overturning one or more of them. Thanks to the lamp, Brassey steered his way carefully and with a grim smile.
At John Waters’s door he paused and listened. John’s nose revealed his condition.
Gliding up the stairs on shoeless feet the burglar entered the dining-room, picked the locks of the sideboard with marvellous celerity, unfolded a canvas bag, and placed therein whatever valuables he could lay hands on. Proceeding next to the drawing-room floor, he began to examine and appropriate the articles of vertu that appeared to him most valuable.
Not being a perfect judge of such matters, Mr Brassey was naturally puzzled with some of them. One in particular caused him to regard it with frowning attention for nearly a minute before he came to the conclusion that it was “vurth munny.” He placed the lamp on the small table near the window, from which he had lifted the ornament in question, and sat down on a crimson chair with gilded legs to examine it more critically.
Meanwhile the Slogger, left in the dark with the still fitfully struggling Dumps, employed his leisure in running over some of the salient events of his past career, and in trying to ascertain, by the very faint light that came from a distant street-lamp, what was the nature of his immediate surroundings. His nose told him that the cask at his elbow was beer. His exploring right hand told him that the tap was in it. His native intelligence suggested a tumbler on the head of the cask, and the exploring hand proved the idea to be correct.
“Brassey was wery ’ard on me to-night,” he thought. “I’d like to have a swig.”
But Dumps was sadly in the way. To remove his left hand even for an instant from the dog’s muzzle was not to be thought of. In this dilemma he resolved to tie up the said muzzle, and the legs also, even at the risk of causing death. It would not take more than a minute to draw a tumblerful, and any dog worth a straw could hold his wind for a minute. He would try. He did try, and was yet in the act of drawing the beer when my doggie burst his bonds by a frantic effort to be free. Probably the hairy nature of his little body had rendered a firm bond impossible. At all events, he suddenly found his legs loose. Another effort, more frantic than before, set free the muzzle, and then there arose on the still night air a yell so shrill, so loud, so indescribably horrible, that its conception must be left entirely to the reader’s imagination.
At the same instant Dumps scurried into the kitchen. The scuttle and tongs went down, the slop-pail and shovel followed suit, also the watering-pan, into which latter Dumps went head foremost as it fell, and from its interior another yell issued with such resonant power that the first yell was a mere chirp by contrast. The Slogger fled from the scene like an evil spirit, while John Waters sprang up and grasped the pistol and poker.
The effect on Brassey in the drawing-room cannot be conceived, much less described. He shot, as it were, out of the crimson-gilded chair and overturned the lamp, which burst on the floor. Being half full of paraffin oil it instantly set fire to the gauze window-curtains. The burglar made straight for the stairs. John Waters, observing the light, dashed up the same, and the two met face to face on the landing, breathing hate and glaring defiance!