I did so at ease, for a flue entered the main shaft immediately below the stack, which was a decidedly dumpy one--in fact, less than five feet tall; so that I supported myself not by the arms alone but by resting my toes on the ridge where flue and shaft met.
Now, as the reader will remember, it was the height of summer, and the day had brightened considerably since we entered the house.
The sudden sunshine set me blinking, and while I cleared my eyes it seemed to me that a man--a dark figure--something, at any rate, and something a great deal too large to be mistaken for a cat--stole from under the gable above which my chimney rose, and, swiftly crossing a patch of flat leaded roof to the right, disappeared around a chimney-stack on the far side of it.
I ceased rubbing my eyes and stared at the stack.

It was a tall one, rising from a good fifteen feet below almost to a level with mine, and I could not possibly look over it.

_Something_, I felt sure, lurked behind it, and my ears seemed to hold the sound of a soft footstep.

I forgot Mr.Trapp.

By pulling myself a little higher I could get a better view, not of the stack, but of the stretch of roof beyond it: nobody could break cover in that direction and escape me.
I took a firm grip on the corroded bricks and heaved on them.
Next moment they had given way under my hands, falling inwards: and I was falling with them.
I kicked out, striving to find again with my toes the ridge where the flue joined the shaft--missed it--and went shooting down to the right through a smother of soot.
The total fall--or slide, rather--was not a severe one, after all; twenty feet perhaps, though uncomfortable enough for sixty.