The Twins, unable to cope with Caleb’s determination, stole noiselessly out.  And thus it was that when, late in the afternoon, the little Doctor returned, he found Peter and Paul, in large blue aprons, busily helpless downstairs, and Tamsin, bright-eyed and warm of cheek, seated by the sick man’s bedside.

On the following morning, which the reader, should he care to calculate, will find to be Tuesday, Admiral Buzza dropped his newspaper with a start, and glared across the breakfast-table.

“What is it, my love?” inquired his wife.  “Nothing wrong, I hope?”

“Wrong?  Oh! no,” replied the Admiral grimly, “nothing—­wrong.  Oblige me by listening to this, madam.”  He took up the paper and read aloud: 

“ANOTHER DYNAMITE PLOT. 
A WHOLE TOWN DECEIVED—­EXTRAORDINARY PROCEEDINGS. 
ESCAPE OF THE SUSPECTED PERSONS. 
THE DYNAMITE FIENDS STILL AT LARGE.

“The existence of another of these atrocious conspiracies aimed at the security of our public buildings and the safety of peaceful citizens, has been brought to light by certain recent occurrences at the romantic little seaport town of Troy.  We have reason to believe that the suspicions of the police have been for some time aroused; and it is to their unaccountable dilatoriness we owe it that the conspirators have for the time made good their escape and still continue to menace our lives and property.  It appears that some months back a couple, giving the names of the Honourable Mr. and Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys—­”

["Really, Samuel, if you cannot eat an ordinary egg without clattering the spoon in that unseemly manner, I must ask you to suspend your meal until I have finished.”]

“appeared at Troy as tenants of one of the most fashionable villa residences in that town.  The elite [ahem] of the neighbourhood, too easily cajoled [h’m], and little suspecting their villainous designs, received the newcomers with open arms and a lamentable lack of inquisitiveness.”

“Well, really,” put in Mrs. Buzza, “I don’t know what they call ‘inquisitiveness’; if a brass telescope—­Why, Sam, dear, how pale you are!”

“Through the gross carelessness, we can hardly bring ourselves to say the connivance, of the Custom House officials, they were allowed to land with impunity a considerable quantity of dynamite, with which on Saturday night they decamped.  Their disappearance remained unsuspected up to a late hour on Sunday morning, when ‘The Bower’ was visited, and (to borrow the words of the great master of prose) non sunt inventi.  The neatness with which the escape was executed points to the disquieting conclusion that they did not want for assistance.”

“I’ll ask you to excuse me,” said Sam, rising abruptly and leaving the room.  A sick terror possessed his heart; visions of the dock and the felon’s cell followed him as he picked up his hat and crept into the street.  Outside, the morning was serene, with the promise of a broiling noon; but as far as Sam was concerned, Egyptian darkness would have been better.  He shivered:  at the corner of the street he met the local policeman and winced.