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Shattered windows, sashes and all, flew out into the street, followed by showers of type, chair-legs, table-tops, and then, piece by piece, the battered cogs, wheels, and forms of a printing-press. The crowd made little noise. In fifteen minutes the house was a shell with gaping windows, surrounded with a pile of chaotic rubbish, and the men who had done the work quietly disappeared.

"The rest of you," he said, "will have the rest of the day off. Get out." Seventy-six chair-legs squeaked, and Miss Rose's nineteen companions, with murmurs and occasional nervous giggles, hurried off to the coat-room. A few minutes later the bell of the outer door clanged once they were going; clanged a second time they were gone.

Thereupon the racket of chair-legs on the floor signified that they were settling into their seats, a disturbance which Swithin took advantage of by going on tiptoe across the floor above, and putting sheets of paper over knot-holes in the boarding at points where carpet was lacking, that his lamp-light might not shine down.

Jackson brought his chair-legs down again, and put his hand on the planchette. "Feel that tinglin'?" asked. Whitwell, and Jackson made yes with silent lips.

But there came a tremendous knocking at the door, and I could hear someone rapping and kicking at the panels trying to force an entrance. So I laid a restraining hand on the negro and bade him drop the almost lifeless body. Giving him one of the chair-legs, and bidding him keep an eye on the three men, who evidently had had enough of the rough things of life, I went to the door.

Then Lady Queenie Paulle entered rather hurriedly, filling the room with a distinguished scent. All the men rose in haste, and there was a frightful scraping of chair-legs on the floor. Lady Queenie cheerfully apologised for being late, and, begging no one to disturb himself, took a modest place between the chairman and the secretary and a little behind them.

Espérance hastened to prepare a saucer of milk, and, when this was exhausted, added a generous portion of fish, and Zut then made a tour of the shop, rubbing herself against the chair-legs, and receiving the homage of customers and duck-clad assistants alike.

They quarrel there so vigorously that it even interferes with the dusting of the chair-legs. She ought not to be long in saving up sufficient to marry on, for the generosity of people on the stage to the servants there makes one seriously consider the advisability of ignoring the unremunerative professions of ordinary life and starting a new and more promising career as a stage servant.

Wherever the ground was soft enough or sufficient dust lay to show impressions he stopped to examine the spot carefully for footprints. Occasionally he detected the sharp marks of the chair-legs or of the boot. The trial led towards the mountains, as was natural. But after several hours' progress Badshah turned suddenly to the left and endeavoured to continue on towards the west.

In the throngs that flocked to the opening of the Royal Academy, waiting hours before the doors were opened, fighting and struggling for a foothold on the stairs, eager to be the first to see, though there were weeks of opportunities ahead in the rare recurrence through the hum of the vast criticising crowd of a word of technical judgment or sober artistic criticism it was easy to recognize the same spirit that confuses morality with chair-legs, that finds a knocker more "sincere" and "right" than a door-bell, that insists as upon a vital necessity that the heads of all nails should be visible and that all lines should be straight, and would as soon have a shadow on its conscience as in the pattern of wall-paper.