“Is that all?” asked Jan, alluding to the story.

“Wait a bit.  The fellow put his big fist upon the latch-key-hole—­I think he must have been a feller of trees, I do—­and his knee to the door, and he burst it open.  Burst it open, Jan! you never saw such strength.”

“I could burst any door open that I had a mind to,” was the response of Jan.

“He burst it open,” continued young Cheese, “and burst it against old West.  You should have seen ’em stare!  They both stared.  I stared.  I think the chap did not mean to do it; that he was only trying his strength for pastime.  But now, Jan, the odd part of the business is, how did West get in?  If there’s not another door, he must have got down the chimney.”

Jan went on with his compounding, and made no response.

“And if there is a door, he must have been mortal sly over it,” resumed the young gentleman.  “He must have gone right out from here, and in at the side gate of the garden, and got in that way.  I wonder what he did it for?”

“It isn’t any business of ours,” said Jan.

“Then I think it is,” retorted Master Cheese.  “I’d like to know how many times he has been in there, listening to us, when we thought him a mile off.  It’s a shame!”

“It’s nothing to me who listens,” said Jan equably.  “I don’t say things behind people’s backs, that I’d not say before their faces.”

“I do,” acknowledged young Cheese.  “Wasn’t there a row!  Didn’t he and the man go on at each other!  They shut themselves up in that room, and had it out.”

“What did the man want?” asked Jan.

“I’d like to know.  He and old West had it out together, I say, but they didn’t admit me to the conference.  Goodness knows where he had come from.  West seemed to know him.  Jan, I heard something about him and the Chalk Cottage folks yesterday.”

“You had better take yourself to a safe distance,” advised Jan.  “If this goes off with a bang, your face will come in for the benefit.”

“I say, though, it’s you that must take care and not let it go off,” returned Master Cheese, edging, nevertheless, a little away.  “But about that room?  If old West——­”

The words were interrupted.  The door of the room in question was pushed open, and Dr. West came out of it.  Had Master Cheese witnessed the arrival of an inhabitant from the other world, introduced by the most privileged medium extant, he could not have experienced more intense astonishment.  He had truly believed, as he had just expressed it, that Dr. West was at that moment a good mile away.

“Put your hat on, Cheese,” said Dr. West.

Cheese put it on, going into a perspiration at the same time.  He thought nothing less than that he was about to be dismissed.

“Take this note up to Sir Rufus Hautley’s.”

It was a great relief; and Master Cheese received the note in his hand, and went off whistling.