and get in before he sees us, and then we can explain who we are."

"And if the window won't do, we'll try the chimney, it looks a jolly big
one."

Then after a pause--

"I suppose he'll be glad to see us?"

"Of course he will. He must be dreadfully dull all alone."

A few minutes after, they were holding a whispered consultation outside
a small pantry window through which Roy was going to squeeze himself.

"I'll go first. It will be a tight fit for you, Dudley, but I'll give
you a good pull through, and you must hold your breath well in."

"It's a kind of housebreaking," Dudley said, ripples of fun passing over
his face; "I don't mind visiting sick people if we go in at their
windows like this!"

But Roy's little face was full of anxious gravity and purpose, and he
checked Dudley's inclination to laugh at once.

He accomplished his part successfully, and then poor Dudley was hauled
and pulled at till purple in the face, and breathless with exertion, he
exclaimed, "I'm being squashed to a jelly; let go, I can't do it!"

"Just one more try--now then--there, we've done it!"

But Roy's exclamation of delight was drowned in an awful crash, as
Dudley swept off some shelves a bowl of milk, two plates, and a cup of
soup, and fell to the ground himself in the midst of it all.

Immediately a man's voice called out, "Who's there! Hi! Help! Thieves!
Help!"

Roy darted into the kitchen, and confronted a tall, hollow-cheeked man
who had scrambled out of his bed in the chimney corner, and stood
trembling from head to foot clutching hold of the bed-post, and coughing
violently.

He did not seem at all appeased at the sight of the boys, but shook his
fist at them in a paroxysm of fright and rage.

"Go away, you young blackguards--a robbin' honest folk, and a darin' to
show yer impudent faces, and disturbin' a dyin' man, knowin' as he's too
bad to give yer the hidin' ye desarve!"

Roy was quite taken aback.

"You're quite mistaken--let us explain--we've come to see you and do you
good. Don't you know who we are? We live at the Manor. Look--get back
into bed again, you'll take cold. We've brought you some pudding."

Here a parcel of currant pudding was taken out of his jacket pocket and
held out temptingly.

"A' don't believe a word! Ye've been in the pantry a smashin' the
missus' things, and a eatin' and a drinkin' all ye can lay hands
on--begone, I tell ye!"

"That was me," put in Dudley, edging up to the irat