“Comin’ in here—the young rascals! Look at their footmarks, see? What’ll my old woman say when she gets home?”
“They’ve gone upstairs, too. Look at the marks. Blarst ’em!”
William went to the window, holding Jumble beneath his arm.
“We can easily climb down by this pipe,” he said quickly. “Then we’ll run back.”
He swung a leg over the window sill, prepared to descend with Jumble clinging round his neck, as Jumble was trained to do. Jumble’s life consisted chiefly of an endless succession of shocks to the nerves.
Ginger and Douglas prepared to follow.
The men’s footsteps were heard coming upstairs, when a small voice said plaintively, “Pleath—pleath, I can’t do that. Pleath, you’re not going to leave me, are you?”
William put back his foot.
“We—we can’t leave her,” he said. Ginger and Douglas did not question their leader’s decision. They stood in a row facing the door while the footsteps drew nearer.
The door burst open and the two keepers appeared.