Of course, huddled in the kitchen we had heard little or nothing.  But we plainly heard Dal on the first floor and Flannigan on the second yelling “fire,” and the patter of feet as the guards ran to the front of the house.  And at that instant we remembered Aunt Selina!

That was the cause of the whole trouble.  I don’t know why they turned on me; she wasn’t my aunt.  But by the time we had got her out of bed, and had wrapped her in an eiderdown comfort, and stuck slippers on her feet and a motor veil on her head, the glare at the front of the house was beginning to die away.  She didn’t understand at all and we had no time to explain.  I remember that she wanted to go back and get her “plate,” whatever that may be, but Jim took her by the arm and hurried her along, and the rest, who had waited, and were in awful tempers, stood aside and let them out first.

The door to the area steps was open, and by the street lights we could see a fence and a gate, which opened on a side street.  Jim and Aunt Selina ran straight for the gate; the wind blowing Aunt Selina’s comfort like a sail.  Then, with our feet, so to speak, on the first rungs of the ladder of Liberty, it slipped.  A half-dozen guards and reporters came around the house and drove us back like sheep into a slaughter pen.  It was the most humiliating moment of my life.

Dal had been for fighting a way through, and just for a minute I think I went Berserk myself.  But Max spied one of the reporters setting up a flash light as we stood, undecided, at the top of the steps, and after that there was nothing to do but retreat.  We backed down slowly, to show them we were not afraid.  And when we were all in the kitchen again, and had turned on the lights and Bella was crying with her head against Mr. Harbison’s arm, Dal said cheerfully,

“Well, it has done some good, anyhow.  We have lost Aunt Selina.”

And we all shook hands on it, although we were sorry about Jim.  And Dal said we would have some champagne and drink to Aunt Selina’s comfort, and we could have her teeth fumigated and send them to her.  Somebody said “Poor old Jim,” and at that Bella looked up.

She stared around the group, and then she went quite pale.

“Jim!” she gasped.  “Do you mean—­that Jim is—­out there too?”

“Jim and Aunt Selina!” I said as calmly as I could for joy.  You can see how it simplified the situation for me.  “By this time they are a mile away, and going!”

Everybody shook hands again except Bella.  She had dropped into a chair, and sat biting her lip and breathing hard, and she would not join in any of the hilarity at getting rid of Aunt Selina.  Finally she got up and knocked over her chair.

“You are a lot of cowards,” she stormed.  “You deserted them out there, left them.  Heaven knows where they are—­a defenseless old woman, and—­and a man who did not even have an overcoat.  And it is snowing!”