What were we to do, we asked each other in whispers? Of course, previously, I had always known what I should do if a burglar ever came to my house. I should go downstairs, throw open the door and confront him unafraid, asking him in a firm but most melodious voice what had brought him to such a low moral depth, and urging him to better things. He would be so undone by the sight of me and the sound of the music of my voice, that he would crumple up at my feet and confess all his past burglaries. Whereupon, I should motion him to come in and take a seat, while I hastily prepared a cup of Bovril, and cut him a large plate of cold roast beef; and on his observing that I had passed him the mustard pot without first removing the silver spoon, he would be so overcome by my confidence in him that he would voluntarily vow to turn over a new leaf. He would leave with half-a-crown in his pocket. And years afterwards a prosperous man would knock at my door, bearing in his hand half-a-crown, etc. But this particular case did not seem to fit in with my previous programme for the reception of burglars. In the first place there was no Bovril in the house; and secondly, there was no beef, only a tiny piece of cold mutton in the larder—and you can’t do anything heroic with only cold mutton. Meanwhile the man was scraping away downstairs, and we did not know but what he would be in upon us any moment. “Shall we let the dog loose?” said Virginia. “The dog!” I repeated. “Why, where _is_ the dog? Why isn’t he barking?” Until that moment we had forgotten him entirely. There was no sound of him below; and he is a ferocious little thing if strangers come anywhere near the place. “Oh, then they’ve poisoned him!” gasped Ursula, almost in tears. “They’ve got some poisoned meat in to him somehow, under the door perhaps, and he’ll be lying there a corpse, and we never thinking of him.” We all three crept as silently as we could downstairs, to find “the corpse” remarkably cheerful, with his nose at the crack of an outer door, every hair of his body on end with tension, his ears cocked up, and every muscle of him on the alert—but not a ghost of a bark did he give, only a perfunctory waggle of his tail, just as an acknowledgment of our presence, and an apology that he was too much engaged at the moment to give us more attention. There was not much poison about that dog! As the scraping got louder, and my teeth were chattering violently (but only with the cold, as I explained to the other two), I fled upstairs again, and they followed. “What _do_ you usually do when burglars come?” whispered Virginia. “I don’t know. I’ve never had one before,” I moaned. “Didn’t you once tell me you had a bell, or something of the sort?” said Ursula.