better, but if
you don't, then I can't say as there's anything better to do than
to----"

At this moment there came a sound from the street outside which made
everyone but Aunt Amanda jump to his feet. It was the sound of running
feet, mixed with strange cries, not very loud, but somehow
blood-curdling. It was evident that someone was in trouble. Freddie and
the five men rushed from the room and through the shop and into the
street.

The street was very dark, except for a gas-lamp at the opposite corner.
A white figure was running down the pavement towards the shop-door, with
frantic speed; and behind him, evidently chasing him, came a crowd of
little dark creatures, hard to make out in the dim light. It was these
creatures who were making the little blood-curdling cries. In a moment
they had come so near that the party about the shop-door could see what
they were. In front, running desperately with leaps and bounds, and
panting for breath, came a tall slim man all in tight-fitting white
clothes, with a dead white face and a white hairless head; and after
him, tumbling on pell-mell, was a perfect riot of little red imps, with
little horns on their foreheads, and little tails behind them, all
trying to spear the white man with the wicked little pitchforks which
they carried, and to seize him with their claws. Freddie thought they
were precisely like the imps he had seen at Hanlon's Superba. When the
white man reached the shop-door they had nearly caught him. He paused at
that moment, looked wildly about him, saw the open door of the shop, and
dashed in and banged the door to behind him. The imps came tumbling up
and hesitated an instant before the men at the door; and in that instant
the Churchwarden showed the most unexpected presence of mind. He quickly
reached behind him and drew a small bottle out of his pocket and pulled
out the cork and sprinkled a few drops of its contents on the ground
before him. A sharp penetrating odour immediately filled the air; it was
so intense that it made the tears come into Freddie's eyes; but what it
did to the wild mob of imps was almost beyond belief. As they got their
first whiff of it, they tumbled back over one another in a mad effort
to get away; but they could not get away from the odour quick enough; it
caught them and held them, so that in a moment they could not move; they
stood fixed and fast and silent; in another moment they began to melt
away, and in two minutes they ha