me
loose this instant! It's taking my foot off, I tell you!"

"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed, striking a match at once. "Why, if you
haven't gone and got into my best burglar-trap!"

He stood regarding me from a safe distance, with a sly pale smile, and
the wax vesta held on high. I dropped my eyes to my tortured leg: a
couple of boards had opened downward on hinges, and I could see the
rusty teeth of an ancient man-trap embedded in my trousers, and my
trousers already darkening as though with ink, where the pierced cloth
pressed into quivering flesh and bone.

"It's the very same thing that happened to that last maid of mine,"
continued Nettleton. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd never seen a trap like
that before. There aren't so many of 'em, even in museums. I picked this
one up in Wardour Street; but it was my own idea to set it like that,
and I went and quite forgot I'd left it ready for the night!"

That was the most obvious lie. He had set the thing somehow when he had
pretended to be going to light the gas. But I did not tell him so. I did
not open my mouth--in speech. I heard him out in a dumb horror; for he
had stooped, and was lighting the candles one by one.

They were all where they had always been, except one that I must have
kicked over on entering. Nettleton looked at that candle wistfully, and
then at me, with a maniacally sly shake of the head; for it lay within
my reach, but out of his; and it lay in a pool, beneath glistening
shavings, for the whole room was swimming in the stuff that stank.

The lighting of the candles--in my brain as well as on the floor--had
one interesting effect. It stopped my excruciating pain for several
moments. We stood looking at each other across the little low lights,
like Gullivers towering over Lilliputian lamp-posts; that is, he stood,
well out of arm's-length, while I leant with all my weight on one bent
knee. Suddenly he gleamed and slapped his thigh.

"Why, I do believe you thought I was going to set fire to the house!" he
cried.

"I knew you were."

"No--but now?"

"Yes--now--I see it in your damned face!"

"Really, Mr. Gillon!" exclaimed Nettleton, with a shake of his cracked
head. "I hadn't thought of such a thing. But I am in a difficulty. The
gas is on your side of the room, just out of your reach. So is the
control of the very unpleasant arrangement that's got you by the heel.
Is it the ankle? Oh! I'm sorry; but it's no use your looking round. I
only mea