troubles were over. He
positively smiled as he placed a thumb on the knob and shoved.

He shoved strongly and sharply, and instantaneously there leaped at him
out of the darkness a blare of music which appeared to his disordered
mind quite solid. It seemed to wrap itself round him. It was all over
the place. In a single instant the world had become one vast bellow of
Tosti's "Good-bye."

How long he stood there, frozen, he did not know; nor can one say how
long he would have stood there had nothing further come to invite his
notice elsewhere. But, suddenly, drowning even the impromptu concert,
there came from somewhere upstairs the roar of a gun; and, when he heard
that, Sam's rigid limbs relaxed and a violent activity descended upon
him. He bounded out into the hall, looking to right and to left for a
hiding-place. One of the suits of armour which had been familiar to him
in his boyhood loomed up in front of him, and with the sight came the
recollection of how, when a mere child on his first visit to Windles,
playing hide and seek with his cousin Eustace, he had concealed himself
inside this very suit, and had not only baffled Eustace through a long
summer evening but had wound up by almost scaring him into a decline by
booing at him through the vizor of the helmet. Happy days, happy days!
He leaped at the suit of armour. Having grown since he was last inside
it, he found the helmet a tight fit, but he managed to get his head into
it at last, and the body of the thing was quite roomy.

"Thank heaven!" said Sam.

He was not comfortable, but comfort just then was not his primary need.

Smith the bulldog, well satisfied with the way the entertainment had
opened, sat down, wheezing slightly, to await developments.

Sec. 5

He had not long to wait. In a few minutes the hall had filled up nicely.
There was Mr. Mortimer in his shirt-sleeves, Mr. Bennett in blue pyjamas
and a dressing-gown, Mrs. Hignett in a travelling costume, Jane Hubbard
with her elephant-gun, and Billie in a dinner dress. Smith welcomed them
all impartially.

Somebody lit a lamp, and Mrs. Hignett stared speechlessly at the mob.

"Mr. Bennett! Mr. Mortimer!"

"Mrs. Hignett! What are you doing here?"

Mrs. Hignett drew herself up stiffly.

"What an odd question, Mr. Mortimer! I am in my own house!"

"But you rented it to me for the summer. At least, your son did."

"Eustace let you Windles for the summer!" said Mrs. Hignett
incredulously.