room.

"Mercy upon us!" cried Jemina. "It is the devil!"

But now came the worst of it all. The bear put his paw on his heart, and
with the politest bow in the world, remarked:

"Pardon me, ladies, if I intrude."

He had meant to say more, but his audience had vanished; only the flying
tails of Mathias's coat were seen, as he slammed the door on them, in
his precipitate flight.

"Police! police!" someone shouted out of the window of the adjoining
room.

Police! Now, with all due respect for the officers of the law, Paul
Jespersen had no desire to meet them at the present moment. To be hauled
up at the station-house and fined for street disorder--nay, perhaps be
locked up for the night, if, as was more than likely, the captain of
police was at the masquerade, was not at all to Paul's taste. Anything
rather than that! He would be the laughing stock of the whole town
if, after his elaborate efforts, he were to pass the night in a cell,
instead of dancing with Miss Clara Broby.

Hearing the cry for police repeated, Paul looked about him for some
means of escape. It occurred to him that he had seen a ladder in the
hall leading up to the loft. There he could easily hide himself until
the crowd had dispersed.

Without further reflection, he rushed out through the door by which he
had entered, climbed the ladder, thrust open a trap-door, and, to his
astonishment, found himself under the wintry sky.

The roof sloped steeply, and he had to balance carefully in order
to avoid sliding down into the midst of the noisy mob of dogs and
street-boys who were laying siege to the door.

With the utmost caution he crawled along the roof-tree, trembling lest
he should be discovered by some lynx-eyed villain in the throng of his
pursuers. Happily, the broad brick chimney afforded him some shelter,
of which he was quick to take advantage. Rolling himself up into the
smallest possible compass, he sat for a long time crouching behind
the chimney; while the police were rummaging under the beds and in the
closets of the house, in the hope of finding him.

He had, of course, carefully closed the trap-door by which he had
reached the comparative safety of his present position; and he could
not help chuckling to himself at the thought of having outwitted the
officers of the law.

The crowd outside, after having made night hideous by their whoops and
yells, began, at the end of an hour, to grow weary; and the dogs
being denied entran