You are not kept waiting long; the next moment a door is violently slammed, and somebody, or something, is evidently coming downstairs on a tea-tray.
"I told you so," says a voice outside, and immediately some hard substance, a head one would say from the ring of it, rebounds against the panel of your door.
By this time you are charging madly round the room for your clothes.
Nothing is where you put it overnight, the articles most essential have disappeared entirely; and meanwhile the murder, or revolution, or whatever it is, continues unchecked.

You pause for a moment, with your head under the wardrobe, where you think you can see your slippers, to listen to a steady, monotonous thumping upon a distant door.

The victim, you presume, has taken refuge there; they mean to have him out and finish him.

Will you be in time?
The knocking ceases, and a voice, sweetly reassuring in its gentle plaintiveness, asks meekly: "Pa, may I get up ?" You do not hear the other voice, but the responses are: "No, it was only the bath--no, she ain't really hurt,--only wet, you know.

Yes, ma, I'll tell 'em what you say.