r too many years
for me to raise objections at this hour of the day."

"You'll find your correspondence in the library," went on Saunders.
"Most of it I've seen to. There are a few private letters I haven't
opened. There's also a box with a rat, or something, inside it that
came by the evening post. Very likely it's the six-toed albino. I didn't
look, because I didn't want to mess up my things but I should gather
from the way it's jumping about that it's pretty hungry."

"Oh, I'll see to it," said Eustace, "while you and the Captain earn an
honest penny."

Dinner over and Saunders gone, Eustace went into the library. Though the
fire had been lit the room was by no means cheerful.

"We'll have all the lights on at any rate," he said, as he turned the
switches. "And, Morton," he added, when the butler brought the coffee,
"get me a screwdriver or something to undo this box. Whatever the animal
is, he's kicking up the deuce of a row. What is it? Why are you
dawdling?"

"If you please, sir, when the postman brought it he told me that they'd
bored the holes in the lid at the post-office. There were no breathin'
holes in the lid, sir, and they didn't want the animal to die. That is
all, sir."

"It's culpably careless of the man, whoever he was," said Eustace, as he
removed the screws, "packing an animal like this in a wooden box with no
means of getting air. Confound it all! I meant to ask Morton to bring me
a cage to put it in. Now I suppose I shall have to get one myself."

He placed a heavy book on the lid from which the screws had been
removed, and went into the billiard-room. As he came back into the
library with an empty cage in his hand he heard the sound of something
falling, and then of something scuttling along the floor.

"Bother it! The beast's got out. How in the world am I to find it again
in this library!"

To search for it did indeed seem hopeless. He tried to follow the sound
of the scuttling in one of the recesses where the animal seemed to be
running behind the books in the shelves, but it was impossible to locate
it. Eustace resolved to go on quietly reading. Very likely the animal
might gain confidence and show itself. Saunders seemed to have dealt in
his usual methodical manner with most of the correspondence. There were
still the private letters.

What was that? Two sharp clicks and the lights in the hideous candelabra
that hung from the ceiling suddenly went out.

"I wonder if something ha