Presently the trampling seemed to be getting louder, and coming down from the top of the house. Was Mrs. Slaney coming down in chains? The door was thrown open, it was the habit of these people to throw a door wide open so that nobody could shoot from behind it, and in stalked our morose acquaintance in khaki. Behind him I saw two men staggering downstairs with a portmanteau, and thought, “Begad, they’ve captured something.” But there was no Mrs. Slaney in chains. Our friend stuck his legs apart, balanced on them, and said, after looking round the room, “You had better put a coat on. It’s a cold night.” This made me look up. “Eh?” I said. “You’re coming with us,” he answered. “Coming with you?” “We’ve found ammunition in the house,” he announced, “and we’re taking every man in the house.” “Ammunition?” “Oh yes, you know nothing about it, of course. It was in Mrs. Slaney’s bedroom.” “But I’m a married man,” I expostulated. “How am I likely to know what’s in Mrs. Slaney’s bedroom?” A brief three-handed conversation, in which my wife joined, took place, and at the end of it I submitted to fate, and wrapped myself in my oldest overcoat. The last of the party had tramped down the stairs. The raid was over. Mrs. Slaney came in looking double her size with indignation. “You’ve got me into trouble now, Mrs. Slaney,” I said, or something to that effect. “They’ve found your ammunition, and they’re taking me to the Castle.” “Monstrous!” she exclaimed. “Iniquitous! Just a few war trophies.” She turned on our morose friend. “I swear to you I did not know what those things were.” “You mean to tell me you don’t know bullets?” “No.” He turned away from her and grunted at me, “Come along.” Mrs. Slaney marched out of the room. Finishing my toilet with a scarf, I followed in the descent, the man in khaki, our dapper guard, and my wife making up the rear. The front door was open, and all the cold and dark in the world were coming in through it. The black of outside was blacker because of the lorry lights, and the said lorries were now cranked up and humming to be off. Men were climbing into them by the back. The hall had emptied of raiders. At the bottom of the stairs we found Mrs. Fitzgerald, Mrs. Slaney, and a tearful Mrs. O’Grady standing in a circle like chickens come round a trough, and in the middle of them, miserable as a whippet in the wind, O’Grady in a bowler and a threadbare overcoat. They had plunged into the bowels of the house and captured him. There was no check in the tide and I seemed to be passing through the hall and down the steps like a boat passing an island. There were upraised women’s voices. Mrs. Fitzgerald was quite collected and giving advice. My wife was ordering me to wrap up. Mrs. O’Grady was calling upon the saints to help her poor man.