Then I felt that something was close to me. Now if you’ve never been in the dark and had that feeling, why, you don’t know what it is to be scairt. I _knew_ something was there and that it was alive, and I wondered if whatever it was knew that I was there and if it was getting ready to pounce on me. I hardly breathed. Then I heard just the barest _scrape_. It was moving, and it wasn’t more than five foot away. I didn’t move. It come closer and closer and closer. Well, sir, I had about all I could stand. Then something brushed right against my arm and I grabbed. I had to grab. That was all there was to it. Whatever it was grabbed back. It was somebody alive; anyhow it felt alive, especially when it swatted me right in the stummick. That made me mad and I kind of forgot about being scairt and started in to git even. I didn’t even think of hollering for help to Mark Tidd. The other fellow didn’t make a sound, and I didn’t. We went down on the floor and rolled over and over, each trying mighty hard to git the other, and both doing a pretty good job. I know I was being all mussed up and I’ll bet the other fellow wasn’t happy. Not if many of the licks I aimed at him landed. Then I got him down and plumped onto him hard. He was panting, but when he see he was licked he sort of wheezed: “Tallow—help.” Well, I wanted to slam him in the nose. “Binney Jenks,” says I, “what in tunket d’you mean? Why didn’t you say who you was?” “Why didn’t you?” says he. “Anyhow,” says I, “I’ll bet you wasn’t as scairt as I was.” “I was scairter,” says he. “And you’ve mauled me fierce.” “I hain’t what you could call neat and in order,” says I. And then somebody touched me on the shoulder and says, “Keep s-s-still.” It was Mark Tidd. We searched all over that floor in the dark and didn’t find a thing. Then we started up to the kind of attic above, and just as we was going up the stairs we saw a flash of light again. It was up there. Well, there wasn’t anything to do but go along, so we did. Binney stumbled on the steps and made a noise like two freight-engines coming together. The light skittered just once, and then went out, but we heard a rustling that sounded sort of like rats running inside partition walls. You know that kind of a sound. There wasn’t any use being cautious any more, so we jumped up there as fast as we could, and went plunging every which way in the dark. I guess we felt over every inch of that place, but not a thing did we find. We even went down to the office and got some matches and searched with them. But not a hide or a hair of a magician or anybody else did we discover—not until we were just ready to give it up. Then Mark stooped over and picked up something. “Any of you d-d-drop this?” says he. We all looked at it. It was one of them curved-bladed pruning-knives. It didn’t belong to any of us. “The handle’s warm,” says Mark. “Somebody’s had it in his hand or his p-p-pocket, and not long ago.”