Now Miss Grahame was said by critical friends--not enemies; at least, they said not--to be over-anxious to confer benefits of her own selection on the Human Race. Her finger-tips, they hinted, were itching to set everyone else's house in order. Naturally, she had a strong bias towards Education, that most formidable inroad on ignorance of what we want to know nothing about. Uncle Mo regarded the human mind, if not as a stronghold against knowledge, at least as a household with an inalienable right to choose its guests. Miss Grahame was in favour of invitations issued by the State, and _vise'd_ by the Church. Everything was to be correct, and sanctioned. But it was quite clear to her that these views would not be welcome to the old prizefighter, and she was fain to be content with the slight protest against Obscurantism just recorded. In short, Miss Grahame found nothing to say, and the subject had to drop. She could, however, lighten the air, and did so. "What on earth are they about upstairs?" said she. "I really think I might go up and see." And she was just about to do so, with the assent of Aunt M'riar, when the latter said suddenly:--"My sakes and gracious! What's that?" rather as though taken aback by something unaccountable than alarmed by it. Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said, placidly:--"Water-pipes, _I_ should say." For in a London house no sound, even one like the jerk of a stopped skid on a half-buried boulder, is quite beyond the possible caprice of a choked supply-pipe. Miss Grahame would have accepted the sound as normal, with some reservation as to the strangeness of everyday noises in this house, but for Aunt M'riar's exclamation, which made her say:--"Isn't that right?" It was not, and the only human reply to the question was a further exclamation from Aunt M'riar--one of real alarm this time--at a disintegrating cracking sound, fraught with an inexplicable sense of insecurity. "_That_ ain't water-pipes," said Uncle Mo. Then something--something terrifying--happened in the Court outside. Something that came with a rush and roar, and ended in a crash of snapping timber and breaking glass. Something that sent a cloud of dust through the shivered window-panes into the room it darkened. Something that left behind it no sound but a sharp cry for help and moaning cries of pain, and was followed by shouts of panic and alarm, and the tramp of running feet--a swift flight to the spot of helpers who could see it without, the thing that had to be guessed by us within. Something that had half-beaten in the door that Uncle Mo, as soon as sight was possible, could be seen wrenching open, shouting loudly, inexplicably:--"They are underneath--they are underneath!" _Who_ were underneath? The children? And underneath what?