hammering ceased, and the
silence was even worse. It was more suggestive.

In about fifteen minutes there was a thud, as if the cage had fallen,
and the sound of feet rushing down the cellar stairs. Then there were
groans and loud oaths, and everybody talking at once, below, and the
sound of a struggle. In the dining room we all sat bent forward, with
straining ears and quickened breath, until we distinctly heard someone
laugh. Then we knew that, whatever it was, it was over, and nobody was
killed.

The sounds came closer, were coming up the stairs and into the pantry.
Then the door swung open, and Tom and a policeman appeared in the
doorway, with the others crowding behind. Between them they supported
a grimy, unshaven object, covered with whitewash from the wall of the
shaft, an object that had its hands fastened together with handcuffs,
and that leered at us with a pair of the most villainously crossed eyes
I have ever seen.

None of us had ever seen him before.

"Mr. Lawrence McGuirk, better known as Tubby,'" Tom said cheerfully.
"A celebrity in his particular line, which is second-story man and
all-round rascal. A victim of the quarantine, like ourselves."

"We've missed him for a week," one of the guards said with a grin.
"We've been real anxious about you, Tubby. Ain't a week goes by, when
you're in health, that we don't hear something of you."

Mr. McGuirk muttered something under his breath, and the men chuckled.

"It seems," Tom said, interpreting, "that he doesn't like us much. He
doesn't like the food, and he doesn't like the beds. He says just when
he got a good place fixed up in the coal cellar, Flannigan found it, and
is asleep there now, this minute."

Aunt Selina rose suddenly and cleared her throat.

"Am I to understand," she asked severely, "that from now on we will have
to add two newspaper reporters, three policemen and a burglar to the
occupants of this quarantined house? Because, if that is the case, I
absolutely refuse to feed them."

But one of the reporters stepped forward and bowed ceremoniously.

"Madam," he said, "I thank you for your kind invitation, but--it will
be impossible for us to accept. I had intended to break the good news
earlier, but this little game of burglar-in-a-corner prevented me. The
fact is, your Jap has been discovered to have nothing more serious than
chicken-pox, and--if you will forgive a poultry yard joke, there is no
longer any necessity for your being