"If they've got in we'll run for it," Mr. Puddlebox had said as they came down the passage. But the room was entered so impetuously that the only running done was, perforce, into it, and at that with a stumbling rush on the part of Mr. Puddlebox into the back of the nightshirt and the collapse of Mr. Wriford over Mr. Puddlebox's heels upon him. Mr. Puddlebox encircled the nightshirt about its waist with his arms; the nightshirt, gun in hand, staggered towards the corduroy and with the gun swept its supporting leg from under it; the gun discharged itself through its bell-shaped mouth with an appalling explosion; the corduroy with a loud shriek to the effect that he was dead fell upon the head of the nightshirt; and there was immediately a tumult of four bodies with sixteen whirling legs and arms, no party to which had any clear perception as to the limbs that belonged to himself, or any other strategy of campaign than to claw and thump at whatever portion of whoever's body offered itself for the process. There were, with all this, cries of very many kinds and much obscenity of meaning, changing thrice to a universal bellow of horror as first a table and its contents discharged itself upon the mass, then a dresser with an artillery of plates and dishes, and finally a grandfather clock which, descending sideways along the wall, swept with it a comprehensive array of mural decorations. Assortment of arms and legs was at length begun out of all this welter by the corduroyed gentleman who, finding himself not dead as he had believed, but in great danger of reaching that state in some very horrible form, found also his own hands and knees and upon them crawled away very rapidly towards an adjoining room whose door stood invitingly open. There were fastened to his legs as he did so a pair of hands whose owner he first drew after him, then dislodged by, on the threshold of the open door, beating at them with a broken plate, and having done so, sprung upright to make for safety. The owner of the hands however sprung with him, attached them--and it was Mr. Wriford--to his throat, and thrust him backwards into the adjoining room and into the midst of several shallow pans of milk with which the floor of this room was set.