"Well, I should like to see it once," said Jimmieboy. "Then I might believe it." "Then you will never believe it," returned the major, "because you will never see it. I never fight in the presence of others, sir." As the major spoke these words a heavy footstep was heard on the stairs. "What is that?" cried the major, springing to his feet. "I do not ask you for your gold, Nor for an old straw hat-- I simply ask that I be told Oh what, oh what is that?" "It is a footstep on the stairs," said Jimmieboy. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned the major "If it is Fortyforefoot all is over for us. This is what I feared. "I was afraid he could not wait, The miserable sinner, To serve me up in proper state At his to-morrow's dinner. Alas, he comes I greatly fear In search of Major Me, sir, And that he'll wash me down with beer This very night at tea, sir." "Oh, why did I come here--why----" "I shall!" roared a voice out in the passage-way. "You shall not," roared another voice, which Jimmieboy was delighted to recognize as Bludgeonhead's. "I am hungry," said the first voice, "and what is mine is my own to do with as I please. I shall eat both of them at once. Stand aside!" "I will toss you into the air, my dear Fortyforefoot," returned Bludgeonhead's voice, "if you advance another step; and with such force, sir, that you will never come down again." "Tut, tut! I am not so easily tossed. Stand aside," roared the voice of Fortyforefoot. The two prisoners in the pantry heard a tremendous scuffling, a crash, and a loud laugh. Then Bludgeonhead's voice was heard again. "Good-by, Fortyforefoot," it cried. "I hope he is not going to leave us," whispered Jimmieboy, but the major was too frightened to speak, and he trembled so that half a dozen times he fell off the ice-cake that he had been sitting on. "Give my love to the moon when you pass her, and when you get up into the milky way turn half a million of the stars there into baked apples and throw 'em down to me," called Bludgeonhead's voice. "If you'll only lasso me and pull me back I'll do anything you want me to," came the voice of Fortyforefoot from some tremendous height, it seemed to Jimmieboy. "Not if I know it," replied Bludgeonhead, with a laugh. "I think I'd like to settle down here myself as the owner of Fortyforefoot Valley. Good-bye." Whatever answer was made to this it was too indistinct for Jimmieboy to hear, and in a minute the key of the pantry door was turned, the door thrown open, and Bludgeonhead stood before them. "You are free," he said, grasping Jimmieboy's hand and squeezing it affectionately. "But I had to get rid of him. It was the only way to do it. He wanted to eat you right away." "And did you really throw him off into the air?" asked Jimmieboy, as he walked out into the hall. "Yes," said Bludgeonhead. "See that hole in the roof?" he added, pointing upward.