Almost instantly in the reception room there was a sound like the delivery of a ton of coal—— Skeeter Butts had fallen down-stairs! Hopey Prophet, hearing all the commotion, started from the pantry to see what it was about; glancing across the back hall into Colonel Tom Gaitskill’s office, she beheld a strange negro man with a broad grin on his black face, hugging a Hallelujah Ham to his bosom! She hurled herself into the dining-room among the astounded guests, her fat arms stretched up toward the ceiling, her dough-like face ashen with fright as she bawled at the top of her voice: “Fer Gade ’lmighty’s sake, white folks! Dar’s a big nigger man in Marse Tom’s library!” When Mustard Prophet heard Dazzle’s scream of fright, he rushed from a little side porch where he was waiting to serve the cream when they were ready, taking a pistol from his pocket as he ran. There had been no doubt in Mustard’s mind that he had really seen an alligator in the orchard the day before and he had armed himself for protection in case he saw it again. But before Mustard got to the kitchen, he heard the sound made by Skeeter Butts in his tumble down the front stairs, so he changed his course and started in that direction. Just as Mustard arrived in the reception room, he heard Hopey’s wild whoop and her statement that a strange negro was in the library. So Mustard ran across the drawing-room floor, pushed open the folding doors and entered the library, knocking over in his haste a cardboard representation of a negro man who stood holding a Hallelujah Ham to his bosom. Approaching from the rear of this figure, Mustard could not see what it was. It fell face downward and nobody recognized it. Captain Kerley Kerlerac hastily excused himself from the table, stepped into the back hall on his way to the library. Looking about for a suitable weapon, he laid hold upon Orren’s baseball bat standing in the corner. He entered the library through one door just as Mustard entered it through the other. Kerlerac closed his door behind him, thus shutting out the light from the little back hall by which Hopey had been able to see the cardboard figure, and which would have shown Kerlerac that the negro was Mustard whom he confronted. But Kerlerac was in the dark, and Mustard had the light from the drawing-room behind him. What Kerlerac saw was a big negro with a big pistol in his hand. The battle began at once! Mustard shot ten times at Captain Kerlerac, the bullets flying in every direction. Three of them entered the dining-room among the guests, having no effect except to splash the diners out of that room, like a brick splashes water when dropped into a puddle of mud! The last bullet in Mustard’s pistol skimmed along the cheek of Kerlerac, making a long, painful cut, just under the lobe of his ear, adding one more bullet wound to the two he had previously received when he was fighting for Uncle Sam in the world war.