in, and if you
do I shall give you in charge to the police."

And she rang both her bells again.

"Ma'am!" said Gustavus, knocking once more. "Ma'am!"

"It's no use your knocking," returned Mrs. Merillia. "The door is
bolted. Go away, go away!"

And again she rang her two bells.

"Madam!" piped Mrs. Fancy. "Madam! It's me!"

"I know," said Mrs. Merillia. "I know it's you! I saw you! Leave the
house unless you wish to be at once put in prison."

Her bells pealed. Mrs. Fancy began to sob.

"Me to leave the house!" she wailed. "Me to go to prison!"

"Bear up, Mrs. Fancy, she doesn't know who it is!" said Gustavus.
"Ma'am! Ma'am! Missis! Missis!"

"I am ringing," said Mrs. Merillia, in a muffled manner through the
door. "I am summoning assistance! You will be captured if you don't go
away."

And again she pealed her bells. This time, as she did so, the tingling
of a third bell became audible in the silent house.

"Lord!" cried Gustavus, "if there isn't the hall door. It must be
master. He left his key to-night. Here's a nice go!"

The three bells raised their piercing chorus. Mrs. Fancy sobbed, and
Gustavus, after a terrible moment of hesitation, bounded down the hall.
His instinct had not played him false. The person who had rung the bell
was indeed the Prophet, who had basely slunk away from Zoological House,
leaving Madame surrounded by her new and adoring friends.

"Thank you, Gustavus," he said, entering. "Take my coat, please. What's
that?"

For Mrs. Merillia's bells struck shrilly upon his astonished ears.

"I think it's Mrs. Merillia, sir. She keeps on ringing."

"Mrs. Merillia. At this hour! Heavens! Is she ill?"

"I don't know, sir. She keeps ringing; but when I answer it she says,
'Go away!' she says. 'Go--' she says, sir."

"How very strange!"

And the Prophet bounded upstairs and arrived at his grandmother's
door just in time to hear her cry out, in reply to poor Mrs. Fancy's
distracted knocking,--

"If you try to break in you will be put in prison at once. I hear
assistance coming. I hear the police. Go away, you wicked, wicked man!"

"Grannie!" cried the Prophet through the keyhole. "Grannie, let me in!
Grannie! Grannie! Don't ring! Grannie! Grannie!"

But Mrs. Merillia was now completely out of herself, and her only
response to her grandson's appeal was to place her trembling fingers
upon the two bells, and to reply, through their uproar,--

"It is useless for you to say that.