“Well, please go down and ask her to come up here at once,” said Austin.  “I see I shall have to say something, and it really will be too much bother to go over it to everybody in turn.  I’ve had rather a disturbed night, and feel most awfully tired.  So just run down and bring her up as soon as ever you can, and then we’ll get it over.”

“A pretty business—­and me with forty-eleven things to do already to-day,” muttered the old servant as she hurried out.  “True it is that except the Lord builds the house they labour in vain as builds it.  He didn’t have no hand in building this one, that’s as plain as I am—­as never was a beauty at my best.  Well, the child’s safe, that’s one mercy.  Though what he was doing out of his bed when the roof came down’s a mystery to me.  Talking to the moon, I shouldn’t wonder.  The good Lord’s got ‘is own ways o’ doing things, and it ain’t for the likes of us to pick holes when they turn out better than the worst.”

Meanwhile Austin lay quietly and drowsily on his couch piecing things together.  Seen from the distance of a few hours, now that he had leisure to reflect, how wonderfully they fitted in!  First of all, there had been that sudden outburst of raps just as he was stepping into bed.  That, evidently, was intended as a warning.  It was as much as to say, “Don’t! don’t!” But of course he couldn’t be expected to know this, and so he could only wonder where the raps came from, and get into bed as usual.  Then, the instant he did so the raps ceased.  That was because it wasn’t any use to go on.  The rappers, he supposed, had benevolently tried to frighten him away, and induce him to go and sleep on the sofa at the other end of the room where he was now; but the attempt had failed.  So there was nothing for them to do, as he was actually in bed, but to get him out again; and this they had succeeded in doing by dragging all his clothes off.  Now he saw it all.  Nothing, it seemed to him, could possibly be clearer.  But who were the unseen friends who had thus interposed to save his life?  Ah, that was a secret still.

Then footsteps were heard outside, and in bustled Aunt Charlotte, with Martha chattering in her wake.  Austin raised himself upon his cushions, and then sank back again.  “Lord save us!” cried Aunt Charlotte, coming to a dead stop, as she surveyed the ruins.

“It’s rather a mess, isn’t it?” remarked Austin, folding a red table-cover round his single leg by way of counterpane.

“A mess!” repeated Aunt Charlotte.  “I should think it was a mess.  How in the world, Austin, did you manage to escape?”

“Well—­I happened to get out of bed a minute or two before the ceiling broke,” said Austin, “and it’s just as well I did.  Otherwise my artless countenance would have got rather disfigured, and I might even have been hurt.  You see all that raw material isn’t composed of gossamer——­”

“What time did it occur?” asked Aunt Charlotte, shortly.