ed the floor.

Such were the thoughts that flashed through his mind as he stood
motionless by the window, with wide open eyes, in the chill morning
light. Suddenly a rending, bursting noise was heard in the ceiling.
The crack widened into a chasm, and then, with a heavy thud, down fell
a confused mass of old bricks, crumbling mortar, and rotten,
worm-eaten wood full on the mattress he had just relinquished,
scattering pulverised rubble in all directions, and covering the bed
with a layer of horrible dust and _debris_.

Chapter the Sixth

Had her very life depended on it, old Martha would have been totally
unable to give any coherent account of what she felt, said, or did,
when she came into Master Austin's room that morning at half-past
seven with his hot water. She thought she must have screamed, but such
was her bewilderment and terror she really could not remember whether
she did or no. But she never had any doubt as to what she saw. Instead
of a fair white bed with Austin lying in it, she was confronted by the
sight of a gaping hole in the roof, something that looked like a
rubbish heap in a brickfield immediately underneath, and the long
slender form of Austin himself wrapped in a comfortable wadded
dressing-gown fast asleep upon the sofa. "Bless us and save us!" she
ejaculated under her breath. "And to think that the boy's lived
through it!"

Austin, roused by her entrance, yawned, stretched himself, and lazily
opened his eyes. "Is that you already, Martha?" he said. "Oh, how
sleepy I am. Is it really half-past seven?"

"But what does it all mean--how it is you're not killed?" cried
Martha, putting down the jug, and finding her voice at last. "The good
Lord preserve us--here's the house tumbling down about our ears and
never a one of us the wiser. And the man was to 'ave come this very
day to see to that blessed roof. Come, wake up, do, Master Austin, and
tell me how it happened."

"Is Aunt Charlotte up yet?" asked Austin turning over on his side.

"Ay, that she be, and making it lively for the maids downstairs.
Whatever will she say when she hears about this to-do?" exclaimed
Martha, with her hands upon her hips as she gazed at the desolation
round her.

"Well, please go down and ask her to come up here at once," said
Austin. "I see I shall have to say something, and it really will be
too much bother to go over it to everybody in turn. I've had rather a
disturbed night, and feel most awfully ti