Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/144

Rh work again. But it seemed as though something was bound to go wrong at every turn. Just when he had fixed his light in position Lukie screwed up her face and began to wave her hands frantically. The light had tickled her nose and she felt that she was going to sneeze whatever happened. Hankins, not in the least guessing what she meant, simply stood and stared at her. Then Lukie shut her mouth with a snap, sneezed, gave a gulp, turned pale, and said, 'What was that?'

"Hankins pulled up the ends of his wires. 'My Sunday hat!' he exclaimed, 'the blamed thing has come unhitched. You've swallowed the bulb, Miss.' So she had.

"How he satisfied them I don't fully know, but it was more than an hour before they were composed enough to go home. Whatever he thought, Hankins made out that there was no danger, and he added, handsomely enough as it seemed certain that Lukie had bitten through the wire, that he had no intention of charging for the lamp.

It's no use looking on the dark side of things,' said Lukie when they got back; so she made a hearty meal off tinned salmon, to which she was very partial, and then, feeling pretty tired what with one thing and another, went early to bed.

"That night Moses Andrews, a sort of low-down thief from the lime-quarries over at Shapley, broke into the house, thinking to make a good haul. The Marshes were supposed to have some money put away; and the place being old and ramshackle it wasn't difficult even for Mo to get in, though for that matter he was really more fitted to be a tramp than a burglar. He went through the till in the shop and all the drawers in the lower part of the house without finding much, and then he made his way upstairs. His idea was to wake one of the sisters quietly, hold a hatchet over her head, and frighten her into tell-