this idea; for on further reflection I concluded that a snake would not
come down like a man, when there was a better way for one of his habits
to accomplish the purpose. Whatever the villain was, if he came down at
all, he would take to the stair-rail. I felt sure of this, for it
seemed to be the most natural thing for a snake to do.

I could not see how the snake was to get out of the room. I did not
think he could crawl up to the opening I had made, for there was
nothing for him to fasten to in his ascent. It did not seem to me that
he could get out unless he made a flying leap through the opening. I
was by no means sure he could not do this; and I did not care to wait
for him to experiment on the matter. Just then it occurred to me that I
was not the only person liable to be bitten by that snake. As I thought
of it, I walked down the stairs. I knew that Mrs. Boomsby had a mortal
terror of snakes when I lived with the family.

She confronted me in the hall of the second story.

CHAPTER X.

THE FELLOW IN THE LOCK-UP.

"You abominable wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Boomsby, placing her arms
akimbo, and looking at me with the utmost ferocity, so that between her
and the snake I found there was little choice. "What are you a-doin' in
my house?"

"Getting out of it, Mrs. Boomsby," I replied, with the good-nature I
had been nursing up-stairs for several minutes.

I wondered whether she knew anything about the snake. The bare thought
was enough to assure me that she did not. She would no more have
permitted the captain, or any other person, to bring the most harmless
reptile into the house, than she would have opened her sleeping
apartment for the reception of the sea-serpent, in which both she and
her husband believed as in the ocean itself.

"What are you a-doin' here? Can't you let us be here no more'n you
could in Michigan? Must you pursue us wherever we go?" demanded the
lady, putting the matter in an entirely new light to me, for I believed
I had always been able and willing to keep away from the Boomsbys.

"I was invited up-stairs to see you," I began.

"Don't tell me that! Do you think I live in the garret?"

"I thought we were going rather high up; but I supposed Captain Boomsby
knew where to find you," I replied, smiling as sweetly as though there
were no snakes in the Land of Flowers. "But it seems that your husband
lured me up there to make a prisoner of me. He locked me into the
little room in the