Part 25 (2/2)

”Then I'll _make_ you!” he said, catching hold of Oswald.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THEN I'LL _MAKE_ YOU!” HE SAID, CATCHING HOLD OF OSWALD.]

”You jolly well won't,” cried d.i.c.ky, catching hold of the arm of the gentleman.

Then Dora said very primly and speaking rather slowly, and she was very pale--

”I think it would be lovely to fly. Will you just show me how the flying-machine looks when it is unfolded?”

The gentleman dropped Oswald, and Dora made ”Go! go” with her lips without speaking, while he began to unfold the flying-machine. We others went, Oswald lingering last, and then in an instant Dora had nipped out of the room and banged the door and locked it.

”To the Mill!” she cried, and we ran like mad, and got in and barred the big door, and went up to the first floor, and looked out of the big window to warn off Mrs. Beale.

And we thumped Dora on the back, and d.i.c.ky called her a Sherlock Holmes, and Noel said she was a heroine.

”It wasn't anything,” Dora 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 pa.s.sed, 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 carriage, very gentle and gay.

”But, Doctor,” Oswald said, ”he did say he'd give nine pounds a week for the rooms. Oughtn't he to pay?”

”You might have known he was mad to say that,” said the doctor. ”No. Why should he, when it's his own sister's house? Gee up!”

And he left us.

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