A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingled the shrieks of the musk rats. What had happened? Had the cats tasted them before deciding that they disliked the flavour?
"I'm a-comin' in," said the policeman. "You've got a cat shut up there."
"A cat!" said Cyril. "Oh, my only aunt! A cat!"
"Come in, then," said Robert. "It's your own look-out. I advise you not. Wait a shake, and I'll undo the side door."
He undid the side door, and the policeman, very cautiously, came in.
And there, in the kitchen, by the light of one candle, with the mewing and the screaming going on like a dozen steam sirens, twenty waiting motor-cars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four agitated voices shouted to the policeman four mixed or wholly different explanations of the very mixed events of the evening.
Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?