It was now Miss Wewitz’s turn to scream, which she did louder and sharper than Miss Chutney had screamed before her—crying frantically, “There’s a man in the house!—there’s a man!—there’s a man!—there’s a man!” and then, determined to solve the mystery, she set off after the two-legged cover of the globe as fast as her own legs would carry her. The first object of M. le Comte de Sanschemise was to make for the stairs that led to his bed-room; but with the huge leathern cover of the globe over his head, and reaching nearly to his knees, it was impossible for him to tell the direction in which he was going. In his eagerness to escape detection, he ran towards the top of the kitchen stairs, instead of the bottom of those that led to the upper part of the house; and Miss Wewitz had just reached the music-room door when she saw him precipitated headlong down the flight; and heard him afterwards, as he got near to the bottom, go bump, bump—rolling heavily from stair to stair, almost like the globe whose place he had taken. Miss Wewitz shrieked involuntarily at the sight of the catastrophe—Miss Chutney shrieked sympathetically—and Mrs. Wewitz, who came rushing from the housekeeper’s room—and the servants, who came hurrying from the kitchen—all shrieked, they hardly knew why or wherefore, but principally because they heard the others shriek. Then came all the Frenchmen, tearing down the stairs—two and three at a time—some with their hair in paper, and a silk handkerchief thrown hastily over their heads—others with the curling-tongs still in their hands, and half their locks curled, and the other half hanging in matted hanks about their faces—while others had one of their moustachios and whiskers bright red, and the other jet black—others, again, were in their paper collars, and others in embroidered slippers and no socks. When Miss Wewitz saw the human avalanche descending from the first landing, she uttered a piercing “Oh!” and, suddenly closing the door, turned the key, so that she and Chutney at least might be safe. Then she threw herself into the _fauteuil_, and buried her face in her handkerchief—first tittering and then sobbing, and ultimately screaming, and pattering her feet upon the carpet like two drum-sticks doing the “roll” upon a drum. The alarmed Chutney threw herself upon her neck, and begged her not to “give way” so, for that she’d be sure to make herself ill—and that her eyes would be red and swollen for hours afterwards. “Indeed! indeed! Miss Wewitz, if you’ll only believe—it was no fault of mine—indeed—and _indeed_ it wasn’t.”