At this moment there was a shrill and resentful expression of grief from Ace, who, all but the stump of his tail hidden from sight beneath the Morris chair, had encountered one of the rats behind the radiator. A cornered rat will fight, and it was this discovery that brought the yelp of pain from the terrier. The alacrity with which he backed out from under the chair was remarkable. Doubtless his sole desire was to remove himself from the vicinity of the painful indignity and consider his wounded nose. It is not presumable that he entertained any designs on Tubby Bumstead. What followed must be laid to Chance. In retreating from beneath the chair Ace unfortunately obtruded his hind quarters in the path of Tubby, who, armed with a hockey stick, was in full cry. Tubby, being, as his nickname suggests, somewhat obese, was not able to recover from the collision with the grace and celerity of a lither youth. To save himself Tubby dropped his weapon and grabbed at the arm of the Morris chair. Now it so happened that a few moments before someone had thoughtfully transferred the unopened cage containing the three rats in reserve from the floor to that particular arm of the chair. It would be, perhaps, interesting to pause here and speculate as to the thoughts and emotions which possessed those three rats as, elevated to a position of unrestricted view, they watched the scene before them. But there is no time. Tubby’s frantic reach for the support of the chair dislodged the cage. The cage, in falling, struck the already nervous Ace on top of the head. Ace, now thoroughly undone, yielded to blind, unreasoning terror, a terror which became absolute panic when the cage, rebounding from head to floor, threw open its door and delivered into the confusion its three prisoners. That was too much for Ace. With one wild and piercing howl he fled. As it was not possible for him to flee in a straight line, he fled in a circle. For one brief but highly colored moment life became a kaleidoscopic nightmare of flying rats, dogs and boys. To be sure, there was but one dog, but he rotated so rapidly that it was difficult to believe that he was not in reality a revolving procession of dogs. And ever as he went he howled. And ever as he howled he collided with someone’s legs, and the owner of the legs toppled ungracefully to earth. A Futurist could have won immortal fame by transferring that scene to canvas! And then, at the zenith of the glorious orgy of movement and sound, the room door opened and The Terror stood revealed in all his majesty and severity!
Now Ace, as it happened, had reached a position in his orbit about midway between window seat and door when the latter opened. There was no hesitation on the part of the revolving body. Leaving its path at a tangent it hurled itself at the doorway. It was not Ace’s fault that Mr. Williams, Instructor in Modern Languages, was stationed midway between lintel and lintel. Doubtless Ace tried his best to pass to one side of The Terror’s none too sturdy legs. That he did not succeed is not surprising when we consider the speed at which he was going and the fact that he had been deprived of all save a scant two inches of his rudder. Mr. Williams crumpled against the banisters across the narrow hall with a loud and expressive grunt and Ace, rounding the post, hurled himself down the stairs. Mrs. Sharp, nervously eavesdropping halfway up the flight, had a momentary vision of a white streak plunging down upon her, shrieked hysterically and rolled slowly and, because of her well-padded condition, not uncomfortably to the bottom. Ace disappeared into the night.
The Terror recovered his feet and his dignity and regained his position in the doorway. Before him ten boys and five rats maintained silence and frozen attitudes. The five rats were not in sight. Nor was one of the ten boys. A long moment of portentous stillness reigned. Then The Terror, somewhat pale as yet, pronounced the names of the nine visible patrons of sport in a voice which, while still a trifle shaky, was as icy cold as a blast from the Pole.
“You will all,” concluded The Terror, “report at the Office to-morrow morning. And now return to your rooms at once.”
One by one they recovered their caps from the confusion and filed past him and down the stairs and into the night. Only Steve remained in view. Then, with a final glare, Mr. Williams followed. Simultaneously from behind the bureau appeared a cautious head.
“Gone?” asked Jonesie hoarsely.
Steve nodded gloomily.
Jonesie extracted himself from concealment and crawled out of the débris. In one hand he held by the tail a large gray rat, quite dead.
“Where’d you get it?” asked Steve with a brief flash of interest.
“Back there.” Jonesie nodded toward the bureau. “I fell on him when I dived in.”