ra said, just before she began to cry, "only I
remember reading that you must pretend to humour them, and then get
away, for of course I saw at once he was a lunatic. Oh, how awful it
might have been! He could have made us all jump out of the attic window,
and there would have been no one left to tell Father. Oh! oh!" and then
the crying began.

But we were proud of Dora, and I am sorry we make fun of her sometimes,
but it is difficult not to.

We decided to signal the first person that passed, and we got Alice to
take off her red flannel petticoat for a signal.

The first people who came were two men in a dog-cart. We waved the
signalising petticoat and they pulled up, and one got out and came up to
the Mill.

We explained about the lunatic and the wanting us to jump out of the
windows.

"Right oh!" cried the man to the one still in the cart; "got him." And
the other hitched the horse to the gate and came over, and the other
went to the house.

"Come along down, young ladies and gentlemen," said the second man when
he had been told. "He's as gentle as a lamb. He does not think it hurts
to jump out of windows. He thinks it really is flying. He'll be like an
angel when he sees the doctor."

We asked if he had been mad before, because we had thought he might have
suddenly gone so.

"Certainly he has!" replied the man; "he has never been, so to say,
himself since tumbling out of a flying-machine he went up in with a
friend. He was an artist previous to that--an excellent one, I believe.
But now he only draws objects with wings--and now and then he wants to
make people fly--perfect strangers sometimes, like yourselves. Yes,
miss, I am his attendant, and his pictures often amuse me by the
half-hours together, poor gentleman."

"How did he get away?" Alice asked.

"Well, miss, the poor gentleman's brother got hurt and Mr.
Sidney--that's him inside--seemed wonderfully put out and hung over the
body in a way pitiful to see. But really he was extracting the cash from
the sufferer's pockets. Then, while all of us were occupied with Mr.
Eustace, Mr. Sidney just packs his portmanteau and out he goes by the
back door. When we missed him we sent for Dr. Baker, but by the time he
came it was too late to get here. Dr. Baker said at once he'd revert to
his boyhood's home. And the doctor has proved correct."

We had all come out of the Mill, and with this polite person we went to
the gate, and saw the lunatic get into the