"There ain't any distressed damsels there, Peter," I said earnestly; "I saw 'em. One of 'em's Katie Clancy,--an' she lives there all the time, an' the other is Mrs. Muldoon, an' she's hangin' out the wash." But I was unmercifully snubbed for my pains. "You make me perfectly tired," he retorted. "I don't mean Katie, nor Mrs. Muldoon. I know them. The--er--damsels are in dungeons below the ground." I turned to Rob Currier, Jimmy Toppan, and Horace Winslow, who had come into the Masons' back yard with Peter. But they had been under the influence of Peter's warlike mind and persuasive tongue for an hour or more. They seemed to believe in the damsels, and their confidence tended to shake my doubts. Ed Mason was not so easily moved from scepticism. "What are they doin' there?" he inquired. "Doin'? They ain't doin' anything, you chump! They're chained hand an' foot to the rock. How could they do anything? They're waitin' for us to rescue 'em." "Why don't they call a p'liceman?" "'Cos they can't! How could they call so he'd hear through the rock?" "Did Auntie Merrill put 'em in there?" "Yes; she did,--or some of her mur-murmurdons." "Her what?" Horace Winslow broke into the conversation. "Don't you know what murmidons are? They're big woolly elephants with long tusks." "Oh, get out! Auntie Merrill hasn't got any. You think you're stuffin' me, but you ain't!" Peter seemed to be willing to change the subject, and get on to the main issue. "We'll divide into two regiments,--I'll take command of one, and Rob of the other. I'll take Horace and Sam, and Rob can take Ed Mason and Jimmy. We'll stay here, an' you can go down into Sam's yard an' climb over the fence, an' go up by the path next the Nortons' house. Then we'll attack the house from two sides at once. Now, go on, Rob." But this was going altogether too fast for me. "How'll we get by Mrs. Muldoon? She's out there on the clothes-jack now." "That'll be all right," Peter assured me; "if she says anything, just knock her down!" But I could not imagine myself knocking Mrs. Muldoon down under any circumstances. In the first place, she weighed over two hundred pounds. "An' say," continued Ed Mason, "how are we goin' to attack the house when we get there? What'll we do?" Even Jimmy Toppan was wavering. "Where are the murmidons? What'll we do if we meet them?" he asked. Such questions were quite appropriate. We had long been accustomed to scout on Auntie Merrill, as well as other more formidable persons. We had tracked her up and down her garden many times, peered at her from behind bushes, and observed her from the tops of trees. But Peter, filled with a longing for military glory and daring deeds, was proposing an exploit altogether more hazardous than anything we had ever attempted. Thirsting for conquest, he overlooked all obstacles. He had, however, failed to infect us with his enthusiasm.