Doctor Sanford received Jimmy’s crazy message in astonishment.  He, too, rang the telephone again and again but could hear nothing more, so he walked down to Miss Minerva’s house and rang the door-bell.  Jimmy opened the door and led the way to the back-porch, where the injured man, who had just recovered consciousness, was sitting limply in a chair.

“What does all this mean?  Are you hurt?” asked the Doctor as he examined Mr. Jones’s victim.

“No, I think I’m all right now,” was the reply; “but that scoundrel certainly gave me a severe blow.”

Billy, shut up in the bath-room and listening to all the noise and confusion, had been scared nearly out of his senses.  He had kept as still as a mouse till now, when, thinking he heard friendly voices he yelled out, “Open the do’ an’ untie me.”

“We done forgot Billy,” said the little rescuer, as he ran to the bath-room door and opened it.  He was followed by the Doctor, who cut the cords that bound the prisoner.

“Now, William,” commanded Doctor Sanford as they grouped themselves around the stout, plump gentleman in the chair, “begin at the beginning, and let us get at the bottom of this affair.”

“Mr. Algernon Jones he come to the gate,” explained the little boy, “an’ he say he goin’ to fix the water pipe an’ he say he’s a plumber.  He’s a very ’greeable man, but I don’t want Aunt Minerva to marry him, now.  I was plumb tickled at him an’ I tuck him to the bath-room an’ fust thing I knowed he grabbed holter me an’ shuck me like what you see a cat do a mouse, an’ he say—­”

“And he’d more ’n a million whiskers,” interrupted Jimmy, who thought Billy was receiving too much attention, “and he—­”

“One at a time,” said the Doctor.  “Proceed, William.”

“An’ he say he’ll bust my brains outer my head if I holler, an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to holler neither, an’ he tie me to a chair an’ tie my mouth up an’ lock the do’—­”

“And I comed over,” said Jimmy eagerly, “and I run home and I see Mr. Algernon Jones is a robber and I ’phoned to Miss Minerva’s beau, and if he’d brunged what I telled him, he wouldn’t never got cracked in the face like Mr. Algernon Jones done crack him, and Billy got to all time let robbers in the house so they can knock mans and little boys down.”

“While you stand talking here the scoundrel will get away,” said the injured man.

“That is so,” agreed Doctor Sanford, “so I’ll go and find the Sheriff.”

Sarah Jane’s huge form loomed up in the back-hall doorway, and she grabbed Jimmy by the arm.

“Yaas,” she cried, “you gwine take you a nap is yuh, yuh ’ceitful caterpillar.  Come on home dis minute.”

“Lemme go, Sarah Jane,” protested the little boy, trying to jerk away from her, “I got to stay here and pertec’ Billy and Miss Minerva’s beau ’cause they’s a robber might come back and tie ’em up and make ’em bleed if I ain’t here.”