“About two, sir.”
“Is that all? Guess I’ll go to sleep again.” Sam pillowed his head in his arms. Perkins took up the tray, cast a glance about the room without detecting the condition of the screen, closed and locked the door and stamped off downstairs. Sam arose with a chuckle and shook his fist in Perkins’s direction.
“I’ll fool you yet, you old dunderhead!” he murmured.
Discretion prompted him to wait a while before beginning operations again. When some ten minutes had passed, and there were no sounds indicating a return on the part of the stableman, Sam went back to his labors. The final staple was wrenched out and Sam pulled the mutilated wire screen into the room and hid it under the bed. Then he pulled his cap down firmly and clambered over the window sashes. Standing on the ledge outside and holding on to the casement, it was easy enough to reach across and lower the sashes of the next window. Then, a trifle uneasy at the thought of that picket fence beneath, he stepped across to the next ledge, and from there, after some effort, squirmed over the sashes into the adjoining room.
This room was similar in size to the one he had escaped from, and, like it, was untenanted. Best of all, however, the door was wide open and the entry lay before him! That was a relief, for all along Sam had been haunted by the fear that when he gained this room he would find himself only out of the frying pan into the fire. For, with this door locked on the outside, too, he would have been no better off than before. He tiptoed across the floor, which squeaked alarmingly, and listened at the doorway. All was silent. He looked out. The dim entry was empty. Some ten feet distant was the stairway and freedom!
Retreating to a chair, he removed his shoes, for the cleats made too much noise when he walked. He tied them together with the laces and again tiptoed to the door. There was no sound to be heard, save an occasional stamp from one of the horses in the farther end of the stable. He advanced along the entry cautiously and as he passed the door of the room from which he had made his escape, the key met his eyes. With a malicious grin he extracted it and dropped it into his pocket, leaving a locked door to puzzle Mr. Perkins should that worthy seek admittance. The stairway was dark, and the door at the foot of it was tightly closed. That presented difficulties. Supposing, when he had opened the door, he found himself confronted by the stableman! If only it were possible to determine Perkins’s whereabouts!
Presently he began the descent of the stairs, trying each step with his foot before trusting his entire weight to it. Even then one or two of them creaked ominously and caused Sam to stop and listen. At the bottom he crouched against the door with his ear close to the keyhole, which, as it held a key, could not be seen through. He could hear nothing. At length he made up his mind to risk it, and very softly he turned the knob. Luckily the latch worked easily and without noise. Then he pushed the door open the merest crack and peered through. Before him was the carriage room with several vehicles lined along the further end. No one, however, was in sight. He opened the door a little more, increasing his field of vision. Gradually the wide doorway came into sight, and a flood of sunlight from outside. Sam ventured his head around the edge of the door, only to pull it quickly back again. For, sitting at the left of the carriage room door, [tilted against the casing in the sunlight and reading a newspaper, was Perkins]!
[“Tilted against the casing in the sunlight and reading a newspaper, was Perkins.”]