htened them
all out. They now lay, stiff and motionless as mummies, roseate as the
morn, deceptively innocent, with eyes tight shut and mouths wide open--
save in the case of Dolly, whose natural appetite could only be appeased
by the nightly sucking of two of her own fingers.

In the attics three domestics slumbered in peace. Still higher, a
belated cat reposed in the lee of a chimney-stack.

It was a restful scene, which none but a heartless monster could have
ventured to disturb. Even Brassey and the Slogger had no intention of
disturbing it--on the contrary, it was their earnest hope that they
might accomplish their designs on the doctor's plate with as little
disturbance as possible. Their motto was a paraphrase, "Get the plate--
quietly, if you can, but get the plate!"

In the midst of the universal stillness, when no sound was heard save
the sighing of the night-wind or the solemn creaking of an unsuccessful
smoke-curer, there came a voice of alarm down the tube--

"John, do you hear burglars?"

"Oh, dear! no, mum, I don't."

"I'm convinced I hear them at the back of the house!" tubed Mrs
McTougall.

"Indeed it ain't, mum," tubed John in reply. "It's on'y that little dog
as comed this morning and ain't got used to its noo 'ome yet. It's
a-whinin', mum; that's wot it is."

"Oh! do get up, John, and put a light beside him; perhaps he's afraid of
the dark."

"Very well, mum," said John, obedient but savage.

He arose, upset the poker and pistol with a hideous clatter, which was
luckily too remote to smite horror into the heart of Mrs McTougall, and
groped his way into the servants' hall. Lighting a paraffin lamp, he
went to the scullery, using very unfair and harsh language towards my
innocent dog.

"Pompey, you brute!"--the footman had already learned his name--"hold
your noise. There!"

He set the lamp on the head of the beer cask and returned to bed.

It is believed that poor perplexed Dumps viewed the midnight apparition
with silent surprise, and wagged his tail, being friendly; then gazed at
the lamp after the apparition had retired, until obliged to give the
subject up, like a difficult conundrum, and finally went to sleep--
perchance to dream--of dogs, or me!

It was while Dumps was thus engaged that Brassey and the Slogger walked
up to the front of the house and surveyed it in silence for a few
minutes. They also took particular observations of both ends of the
street.

"All ser