I took to my heels, and made a dash up the passage for the street. The cage, as I passed under it, swayed violently with the parrot's struggles for free speech. "Drunk again!" it yelled. "Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me--here's a pretty time o' night to disturb a lady!" No longer had I any thought of braving the night and the perils of the road, but pressed my elbows tight against my ribs and raced straight for Stimcoe's. CHAPTER X. NEWS. By great good fortune, Mr. Stimcoe had been drinking the health of the returned prisoners until his own was temporarily affected. In fact, as I reached Delamere Terrace, panting and excogitating the likeliest excuse to offer Mrs. Stimcoe, the door of No. 7 opened, and the lady herself emerged upon the night, with a shawl swathed carelessly over her masculine neck and shoulders. I drew up and ducked aside to avoid recognition, but she halted under the lamp and called to me, in no very severe voice-- "Harry!" "Yes, ma'am!" "You are late, and I have been needing you. Mr. Stimcoe is suffering from an attack." "Indeed, ma'am?" said I. "Shall I run for Dr. Spargo?" She stood for a moment considering. "No," she decided; "I had better fetch Dr. Spargo myself. Being more familiar with the symptoms, I can describe them to him." More familiar with the symptoms, poor woman, she undoubtedly was, though I was familiar enough; and so, for the matter of that, was the doctor, whose ledger must have registered at least a dozen similar "attacks." But I understood at once her true reason for not entrusting me with the errand. It would require all her courage, all her magnificent impudence, to browbeat Dr. Spargo into coming, for I doubt if the Stimcoes had ever paid him a stiver. "But you can be very useful," she went on, in a tone unusually gentle. "You will find Mr. Stimcoe in his bedroom--at least, I hope so, for he suffers from a hallucination that some person or persons unknown have incarcerated him in a French war-prison, such being the effect of to-day's--er--proceedings upon his highly strung nature. The illusion being granted, one can hardly be surprised at his resenting it." I nodded, and promised to do my best. "You are a very good boy, Harry," said Mrs. Stimcoe--a verdict so different from that which I had arrived expecting, or with any right to expect, that I stood for some twenty seconds gaping after her as she pulled her shawl closer and went on her heroic way. I found Mr. Stimcoe in _deshabille_, on the first-floor landing, under the derisive surveillance of Masters Doggy Bates, Bob Pilkington, and Scotty Maclean, whose graceless mirth echoed down to me from the stair-rail immediately overhead. Ignoring my preceptor's invitation to bide a wee and take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne, I ran up and knocked their heads together, kicked them into the dormitory, turned the key on their reproaches, and--these preliminaries over--descended to grapple with the situation.