to his
pouting lips, at the same time rounding his hazel eyes and shaking
his powdered head in a most warning manner. Malkiel nodded, held Mr.
Ferdinand's clothes tighter, and stole on, as he thought, without
making a sound. What was his horror, then, just as he was passing Mrs.
Merillia's door, to hear a voice cry,--

"Hennessey! Hennessey!"

Gustavus and Malkiel stopped dead, as if they had both been shot. They
now perceived that the door was partially open, and that a faint light
shone within the room.

"Hennessey!" cried the voice of Mrs. Merillia again. "Come in here. I
must speak to you."

Gustavus darted on into the darkness of the Prophet's room, but Malkiel
the Second was so alarmed that he stayed where he was, finding himself
totally incapable of movement.

"Hennessey!" repeated the voice.

Then there was a faint rustling, the door was opened more widely, and
Mrs. Merillia appeared in the aperture, clad in a most charming night
bonnet, and robed in a dressing-gown of white watered silk.

"The ratcatcher!" she cried. "The ratcatcher!"

Malkiel turned and darted down the stairs, while Mrs. Merillia, in the
extreme of terror, shut her door, locked it as many times as she could,
and then hastened trembling to the bell which communicated with the
faithful Mrs. Fancy, rang it, and dropped half fainting into a chair.
Mrs. Fancy woke from her second dream just as Malkiel, closely followed
by the now shattered Gustavus, reached the hall.

"Hide me! Hide me!" whispered Malkiel. "In here!"

And he darted into the servants' quarters, leaving Gustavus on the
mat. Mrs. Merillia's other bell now pealed shrilly downstairs. Gustavus
paused and pulled himself together. He was by nature a fairly intrepid
youth, and moreover, he had recently made a close study of Carlyle's
_Heroes and Hero-worship_, which greatly impressed him. He therefore
resolved in this moment of peril to acquit himself in similar
circumstances, and he remounted the stairs and reached Mrs. Merillia's
door just as Mrs. Fancy, wrapped in a woollen shawl and wearing a pair
of knitted night-socks, descended to the landing, candle in hand.

"Oh, Mr. Gustavus!" said Mrs. Fancy. "Is it the robbers again? Is it
murder, Mr. Gustavus? Is it fire?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Fancy, I'll ask the mistress."

He tapped upon the door.

"You can't come in!" cried poor Mrs. Merillia, who was losing her head
perhaps for the first time in her life. "You can't come