“The end of it was we all slept in the tap-room that night.  It seemed strange at first, but anything was better than going ’ome in the dark, and we all slept till about four next morning, when we woke up and found the tramp ’ad gone and left the front door standing wide open.

“We took a careful look-out, and by-and-by first one started off and then another to see whether their wives and children ’ad been eaten or not.  Not a soul ’ad been touched, but the wimmen and children was that scared there was no doing anything with ’em.  None o’ the children would go to school, and they sat at ’ome all day with the front winder blocked up with a mattress to keep the tiger out.

“Nobody liked going to work, but it ’ad to be done and as Farmer Gill said that tigers went to sleep all day and only came out toward evening we was a bit comforted.  Not a soul went up to the ‘Cauliflower’ that evening for fear of coming ’ome in the dark, but as nothing ’appened that night we began to ’ope as the tiger ’ad travelled further on.

“Bob Pretty laughed at the whole thing and said ’e didn’t believe there was a tiger; but nobody minded wot ’e said, Bob Pretty being, as I’ve often told people, the black sheep o’ Claybury, wot with poaching and, wot was worse, ’is artfulness.

“But the very next morning something ’appened that made Bob Pretty look silly and wish ’e ’adn’t talked quite so fast; for at five o’clock Frederick Scott, going down to feed ’is hins, found as the tiger ’ad been there afore ’im and ’ad eaten no less than seven of ’em.  The side of the hin-’ouse was all broke in, there was a few feathers lying on the ground, and two little chicks smashed and dead beside ’em.

“The way Frederick Scott went on about it you’d ’ardly believe.  He said that Govinment ’ud ’ave to make it up to ‘im, and instead o’ going to work ’e put the two little chicks and the feathers into a pudding basin and walked to Cudford, four miles off, where they ’ad a policeman.

“He saw the policeman, William White by name, standing at the back door of the ‘Fox and Hounds’ public house, throwing a ‘andful o’ corn to the landlord’s fowls, and the first thing Mr. White ses was, ’it’s off my beat,’ he ses.

“‘But you might do it in your spare time, Mr. White,’ ses Frederick Scott.  It’s very likely that the tiger’ll come back to my hin ’ouse for the rest of ’em, and he’d be very surprised if ’e popped ’is ’ead in and see you there waiting for ‘im.’

“He’d ‘ave reason to be,’ ses Policeman White, staring at ’im.

“‘Think of the praise you’d get,’ said Frederick Scott, coaxing like.

“’Look ‘ere,’ ses Policeman White, ’if you don’t take yourself and that pudding basin off pretty quick, you’ll come along o’ me, d’ye see?  You’ve been drinking and you’re in a excited state.’

“He gave Frederick Scott a push and follered ’im along the road, and every time Frederick stopped to ask ’im wot ’e was doing of ’e gave ’im another push to show ’im.