"Oh, it's nothing but rats, Jimmy," said he, "or else the cat, or maybe it's the cook."
"No, it isn't," said I. "If I was you, I'd go and see into it. Sue thinks you're awfully brave."
Well, after a little more talk, Mr. Withers said he'd go, and I showed him the cellar door, and got him started down the stairs, and then I locked the door, and went back to the hammock, and Sue and Mr. Travers they sat in the front parlor.
"THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH BURGLARS."
Pretty soon I heard a heavy crash down cellar, as if something heavy had dropped, and then there was such a yelling and howling, just as if the cellar was full of murderers. Mr. Travers jumped up, and was starting for the cellar, when Sue fainted away, and hung tight to him, and wouldn't let him go.
I staid in the hammock, and wouldn't have left it if father hadn't come down-stairs, but when I saw him going down cellar, I went after him to see what could possibly be the matter.
Father had a candle in one hand and a big club in another. You ought to have been there to see Mr. Martin and Mr. Withers. One of them had run against the other in the dark, and they thought they were both burglars. So they got hold of each other, and fell over the milk pans and upset the soap barrel, and then rolled round the cellar floor, holding on to each other, and yelling help murder thieves, and when we found them, they were both in the ash bin, and the ashes were choking them.
Father would have pounded them with the club if I hadn't told him who they were. He was awfully astonished, and though he wouldn't say anything to hurt Mr. Martin's feelings, he didn't seem to care much for mine or Mr. Withers's, and when Mr. Travers finally came down, father told him that he was a nice young man, and that the whole house might have been murdered by burglars while he was enjoying himself in the front parlor.
Mr. Martin went home after he got a little of the milk and soap and ashes and things off of him, but he was too angry to speak. Mr. Withers said he would never enter the house again, and Mr. Travers didn't even wait to speak to Sue, he was in such a rage with Mr. Withers. After they were all gone, Sue told father that it was all my fault, and father said he would attend to my case in the morning; only, when the morning came, he told me not to do it again, and that was all.