"No, no; I will not come out! I will die here!" shrieked Mr. Rodney, while Miss Bindler emerged once more upon the landing, and again started firing about the palace.
"Come out you shall!" shouted the Duke, and he acted with such vigour that in something less than ten minutes he had forced Mr. Rodney from his cover and dragged him, smothered with dust and pale with terror, into the open.
"Do it mercifully! For Heaven's sake, kill me without hurting me!" began the owner of Mitching Dean, looking at his Grace with eyes that had retreated far into his head. "What—you, Duke! I thought you were one of my oldest and most valued—you to fly at me like——"
"Rodney, you're an ass! You're a fool, Rodney! But, all the same, you must act for me in this affair."
Mr. Rodney, beginning to gather that his slaughter was not so imminent as he had previously supposed, now endeavoured to assume an air of dignity.
"Duke, this is strange language," he began stiffly.
"Damned strange! and so's it strange your getting under the bed directly I try to speak to you. Sit down."
And the Duke thrust the owner of Mitching Dean into a sitting posture upon the bed, closed the door, turned the key in the lock, returned to Mr. Rodney—who had meanwhile again gone very pale, suspecting treachery—and remarked:
"Rodney, I've just been trying to strangle that fellow Bush!"