ed the key; then at a certain point the key lost control
over it, and it shot back with a report like a pistol-shot! My heart
flew to my mouth, and almost choked me. The butler gave a double snort
and turned in his bed as Jack and I darted round an angle of the wall
and hid in a dark corner. The butler soon gave unquestionable evidence
that he had not been thoroughly aroused, and we were about to issue from
our place of concealment, when the door of our man-servant's room
opened, and he peeped out. Edwards--that was his name--was a stout
young fellow, and we felt certain that he would not rest satisfied until
he had found out the cause of the noise.

We were right. He stepped cautiously into the passage with a poker in
his hand. My heart sank within me. Just at that moment a cat darted
across the passage with its back and tail up, and its eyes glaring.
Edwards flung the poker at it, missed the cat, and knocked over an old
tin umbrella-stand, with which the poker made a hideous clatter on the
stone floor of the passage.

"Ha! you brute! Wot? it's you as is makin' all that row, is it?"

"Oh, dear, Edwards, what's happened?" cried a shrill voice from the
other end of the passage--it was cook.

"Oh, nothin', only the cat," replied the man as he sauntered into the
butler's room. The butler seemed at that moment to have been smitten
with a fit of apoplexy--we could see him from our dark corner;--he grew
purple in the face, gasped once or twice, choked awfully, and then sat
up in bed staring like a maniac.

"Oh! Jack," I whispered in horror.

"Don't be alarmed; it's only his usual way of waking up. I've seen him
do it often."

"What noise is that? What's going on down there?" cried a deep bass
voice in the distance. It was my father. No one replied. Presently my
father's bedroom bell rang with extreme violence. Edwards rushed out of
the butler's room. The butler fell back, opened his mouth, and
pretended to be asleep--snoring moderately. This of itself would have
undeceived any one, for when the old hypocrite was really asleep he
never snored _moderately_. The cook and housemaid uttered two little
shrieks and slammed their respective doors, while the bell rang
violently a second time.

"Now for it," whispered Jack. He opened the back door softly, and we
darted out. A streak of pale light on the horizon indicated the
approach of day. We tried to close the door behind us, but we heard the
butler c