"Constable!" I screamed, "I am the owner of this house, and I shall hold you responsible for any damage that is done to my property. Come inside, I tell you, and turn these people out." He apparently paid no heed to me whatever; I was not the only one who was screaming; The people at the drawing-room window were behaving as if they had just broken loose from Bedlam. From what I afterwards ascertained it seems as if some of them imagined that they were in for a colourable imitation of the original affair of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Suddenly I became conscious that the proceedings in my immediate neighbourhood had positively increased in liveliness. Turning, I perceived that Saunders was engaged in what looked very like a bout of fisticuffs with still another member of the unemployed; he had detected him in the act of pocketing a silver statuette. Regardless of who was standing in the way I rushed to his assistance. I struck out at somebody--somebody struck out at me. What immediately followed must have borne a strong family resemblance to the "divarsion" which marked the occasion of that immortal "Irish christenin'." "What's the meaning of all this? Who's the owner of this house?" Never was anything more welcome than the sight of the stalwart, blue-coated figure of the representative of law and order standing in the doorway. I tremble to think of what would have happened if his arrival had been delayed much longer. "I am--what's left of him." "Then, if you're the owner of the house, what are all these people doing in it?" "Perhaps you will be so good as to ask them; they have certainly not been invited by me." A voice was raised in explanation--the voice of "Sarah Eliza Warren." "We 've been made the victims of a scandalous hoax, policeman, and if there's a law in the land this person ought to be made to suffer. He's lured people by false pretences from all parts of the country, and I, for one, don't mean to leave this house till he has compensated me for the loss and suffering he has caused me." "More don't I," chimed in, of all persons, that felonious member of the unemployed. "Officer, I give that man in charge for theft; my man has just caught him in the act of appropriating my property." The man began to bluster. "What are you talking about? Who do you think you are? You rob a poor bloke like me of a whole day's work, and then won't give me so much as a ha'penny piece to make up for it! A nice sort you are to talk of robbery!" The constable raised his hand in the orthodox official manner, which is intended to soothe. "Now, then! now, then!" He addressed me. "Is what these persons say true--have you been hoaxing them?" "Most distinctly not; as, if you will be so good as to rid my house of their presence, I shall have much pleasure in promptly proving to you."