Mrs. Hatchard laughed derisively. “You don't like him, that's what it is,” she remarked. “He asked me yesterday whether he had offended you in any way.”
“Oh! He did, did he?” snarled Mr. Hatchard. “Let him keep himself to himself, and mind his own business.”
“He said he thinks you have got a bad temper,” continued his wife. “He thinks, perhaps, it's indigestion, caused by eating cheese for supper always.”
Mr. Hatchard affected not to hear, and, lighting his pipe, listened fer some time to the hum of conversation between his wife and Mr. Sadler below. With an expression of resignation on his face that was almost saintly he knocked out his pipe at last and went to bed.
Half an hour passed, and he was still awake. His wife's voice had ceased, but the gruff tones of Mr. Sadler were still audible. Then he sat up in bed and listened, as a faint cry of alarm and the sound of somebody rushing upstairs fell on his ears. The next moment the door of his room burst open, and a wild figure, stumbling in the darkness, rushed over to the bed and clasped him in its arms.
“Help!” gasped his wife's voice. “Oh, Alfred! Alfred!”
“Ma'am!” said Mr. Hatchard in a prim voice, as he struggled in vain to free himself.
“I'm so—so—fr-frightened!” sobbed Mrs. Hatchard.
“That's no reason for coming into a lodger's room and throwing your arms round his neck,” said her husband, severely.
“Don't be stu-stu-stupid,” gasped Mrs. Hatchard. “He—he's sitting downstairs in my room with a paper cap on his head and a fire-shovel in his hand, and he—he says he's the—the Emperor of China.”