It was lucky, indeed, for me that the chimneys of the Hall were of the wide, old-fashioned brick type unprovided with dampers. Had it not been so, and had my refuge been the modern, narrow, perpendicular form of grate, it is certain that I should never have been alive now. As it was, the worn, old brickwork gave me footing of a kind, and I never stopped until I had reached the chimney-pot, which barred further progress. The soot nearly choked me, and made me cough and sneeze violently. My foothold was most precarious and I was in deadly terror that I might slip and go tumbling right back into the jaws of my enemy. Indeed, I have rarely spent a worse quarter of an hour than I did then. Suddenly I heard the door below open. Sounds came to me almost as clearly as if I had been in the room. ‘Nipper! Nipper!’ I heard Jack call, but I was too frightened to come down. ‘Why, where on earth has he got to?’ my master continued in a surprised tone, and then I heard him moving about the room looking for me. The cat, no doubt, had taken refuge under the dressing-table again when she heard the door open, for she knew as well as possible that she had no right in the bedrooms, her proper place being the kitchen. There was a rustle as Jack raised the hangings, and then he saw her. For the moment there is no doubt but that he thought she had killed and eaten me, and grief and fury possessed him. I heard a smothered squawk of terror, and even in my plight rejoiced that my enemy was feeling a little of the fright she had given me. Then there was a crash. Jack had flung the beast clean out of the window into the elm opposite. I heard him go to the door again, and there was something in his voice as he shouted to his brother to come that made me shiver all over, but not with fright. Harry came rushing into the room, and I am bound to say his voice was almost as queer as that of my master. I was recovering slowly from my terror, and the sound of Jack’s voice was giving me confidence. Also my present refuge was horribly uncomfortable, and the black soot making me feel perfectly miserable, so I turned with the intention of making my way downwards again. You know we squirrels always descend head foremost, holding on with our hind-claws. But I had hardly begun my descent when a bit of hardened soot or plaster gave way beneath me. I made a desperate but quite useless effort to recover myself, and next thing I was sliding helplessly down the steep slope at a pace which increased with every foot I fell. Thud! And I landed in the grate amid a perfect avalanche of soot. Jack, who was sitting on the bed looking more miserable than I had ever seen him before, sprang to his feet as if electrified, and cleared the intervening space with a bound.