rs everywhere.

Bella knew more about the lower regions of her ex-home than I would have
thought. She opened a door in a corner and led the way through a narrow
hall past the refrigerating room, to a huge, cemented cellar, with a
furnace in the center, and a half-dozen electric lights making it really
brilliant.

"Get a chair," Bella said over her shoulder, excitedly. "I can get out
easily here, through the coal hole. Imagine my--"

But it was my turn to grip Bella. From behind the furnace were coming
the most terrible sounds, rasping noises that fairly frayed the silk of
my nerves. We stood petrified for an instant. Then Bella laughed. "They
are not all gone," she said carefully. "Some one is asleep there."

We tiptoed to where we could see around the furnace, and, sure enough,
some one WAS asleep there. Only, it was not one of the servants; it was
a portly policeman, with a newspaper and an empty plate on the floor on
one side, and a champagne bottle on the other. He had slid down in his
chair, with his chin on his brass buttons, and his helmet had rolled a
dozen feet away. Bella had to clap her hand over her mouth.

"Fairly caught!" she whispered. "Sartor Resartus, the arrester arrested.
Oh, Jim and his flawless service!"

But after we got over our surprise, we saw the situation was serious.
The policeman was threatening to awaken. Once he stopped snoring to yawn
noisily, and we beat a hasty retreat. Bella switched off the lights in
a hurry and locked the door behind us. We hardly breathed until we were
back in the kitchen again, and everything quiet. And then Jimmy called
my name from up above somewheres.

"I am going to call him down, Bella," I said firmly. "Let him help you
out. I'm sure I don't see why I should have all this when the two of
you--"

"Oh, no, no! Surely, Kit, you wouldn't be so cruel!" she whispered
pleadingly. "You know what he would think. He--oh, Kit, let them all get
settled for the night, and then come down, like a dear, and help me out.
I know loads of ways--honestly I do."

"If I leave you here," I debated, "what about the policeman?"

"Never mind him"--frantically. "Listen! There's Jim up in the pantry.
Run, for the sake of Heaven!"

So--I ran. At the top of the stairs I met Jimmy, very crumpled as to
shirt-front and dejected as to face.

"I've been hunting everywhere for you," he said dismally. "I thought you
had added to the general merriment by falling downstairs and breaki