"Very good," said Graham, standing close up to the wall and pointing with his outstretched hand, "Cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--cat--dog--here you are."
"Now, 'left eye--push.'"
"Or shove," suggested Jack.
"But there is no eye--whether left or otherwise."
"That's a detail," murmured Jack.
"Let me see." Ella clambered on to a chair. From that position of vantage she examined the protuberances in question.
"There really does seem nothing which could represent an eye; the things look more like knuckle-bones than anything else."
"What's the odds? Let's all get hammers and whack the whole jolly lot of them in the eye, or where, if right is right, it ought to be. And then, if nothing happens--and we'll hope to goodness nothing will--we'll whack 'em again."
"I'm afraid, Ella," put in Madge, "that your cats and dogs are merely suppositions. I vote, by way of doing something practical, that we start stripping the wainscot. You'll find hiding-places enough' behind that, and it's quite on the cards, something in them."
"Certainly," assented Jack, "I am on. Bring out your hatchets, pickaxes, crowbars, and other weapons of war, and we'll turn up our shirt-sleeves, and shiver our timbers, and not leave one splinter of wood adhering to another. Buck up, Graham! Take off your coat, my boy! You're going to begin to enjoy yourself at last, I give you my word."