Although the Bun Emperor's palace was exceedingly large, it now contained so many people in full flight that there was some slight danger of their knocking up against one another. Mrs. Verulam and Chloe, Mr. James Bush, the Duke and the Duchess, were all stretching away at full speed in various directions, and to their number were shortly added Mr. Harrison, Mr. Bliggins, and the owner of Mitching Dean. The groom of the chambers was disturbed in his operations at the telephone by being knocked down just as he was saying to the Emperor:
"Oh, most certainly, sir; you may rely on me, and Mrs. Lite, to my latest breath—oh, indeed! I know I am, sir—I know I am responsible; and if so much as the house is set afire, or the furniture is broke to pieces, I shall——"
At this point in his discourse the paragon ran against him like a charging elephant, and laid him low; and while he was engaged in endeavouring to get up, the Duke fell over him, and the noise of Miss Bindler's six shots rang through the palace. Mr. Harrison sat up, and the Duke began to strangle him, while Mr. Rodney, terrified by Miss Bindler's behaviour, tore out of the green bedroom, and rushed to the detectives' quarters, crying in a piercing voice:
"Save yourselves! All is over! Save yourselves!"
Four of the detectives were so fast asleep that they took no manner of notice of this kindly warning; but Mr. Bliggins, dropping his paper of trifle and tipsy-cake, and letting his magnum fall with a crash, took to his heels, and, after making the entire circuit of the palace about eighty-five times at the top of his speed, plunged head-foremost through a plate-glass window, emerged into the domain, and never stopped till he reached London, where he at once took up another profession.
Mr. Harrison was not of a temper to be strangled, even by a Duke, without making some show of opposition; and on this occasion he exerted himself to such good purpose that, after about ten minutes of acute struggling, during which the fortunes of war sometimes inclined to one side and sometimes to the other, he succeeded in extricating his throat from his Grace's claws, when, wailing at the top of his voice, he flapped off into the darkness, and was no more seen. This misadventure had given the paragon such a start that he gained his bedroom in safety, turned the key eight or nine times in the lock, and then began tying the bed-sheets together with a view to instantly escaping to Bungay by the window. The sheets were, however, too short, and he was forced to desist from this attempt. Meanwhile the Duke, believing that he had very nearly killed Mr. Bush, who had probably only escaped for the moment to die a lingering death in some distant corner of the palace, got up and hurried away to Mr. Rodney's room, which he reached just as the owner of Mitching Dean darted back into it, and was preparing to shut the door on imaginary murderers.
"Don't dare to enter!" cried Mr. Rodney, struggling to bang the door on the Duke. "I shall certainly kill the first man who enters!"
He meant that the first man who entered would certainly kill him, but that was his way of putting it.
"Rodney! Rodney!" cried his Grace. "Let me in, Rodney—let me in!"