A few bangs at the locked door, a few threats of vengeance from the prisoner, such as setting the house on fire, drinking up the wine, and mashing the jelly-pots, and then all was so quiet that the girls forgot him in the exciting crisis of their work.
"He can't possibly get out anywhere, and as soon we 've cut up the candy, we 'll unbolt the door and run.

Come and get a nice dish to put it in," said Fan, when Polly proposed to go halves with Tom, lest he should come bursting in somehow, and seize the whole.
When they came down with the dish in which to set forth their treat, and opened the back-door to find it, imagine their dismay on discovering that it was gone, pan, candy, and all, utterly and mysteriously gone! A general lament arose, when a careful rummage left no hopes; for the fates had evidently decreed at candy was not to prosper on this unpropitious night.
"The hot pan has melted and sunk in the snow perhaps," said Fanny, digging into the drift where it was left.
"Those old cats have got it, I guess," suggested Maud, too much overwhelmed by this second blow to howl as usual.
"The gate is n't locked, and some beggar has stolen it.

I hope it will do him good," added Polly, turning from her exploring expedition.
"If Tom could get out, I should think he 'd carried it off; but not being a rat, he can't go through the bits of windows; so it was n't him," said Fanny, disconsolately, for she began to think this double loss a punishment for letting angry passions rise, "Let 's open the door and tell him about it," proposed Polly.
"He 'll crow over us.

No; we 'll open it and go to bed, and he can come out when he likes.

Provoking boy! if he had n't plagued us so, we should have had a nice time." Unbolting the cellar door, the girls announced to the invisible captive that they were through, and then departed much depressed.