"Look here," said he; "that miserable wild boar won't come out. The guide thinks the only way to get at him is to smoke him out. The only trouble is about you. Will the smoke bother yon, do you think?" "I don't know," said Clive. "Can you stop up the opening?" "No." "Can you keep your heads oat of the windows?" "We'll try. But I wish you'd only thought of bringing a ladder, so as to get us out first, before smoking him." "Yes, I wish we had," said Frank, thoughtfully. "But never mind," he added, cheerily, "there's no use going back for one, because, you see, we'll have you out of that long before a ladder could be brought here." It was only by yelling at the top of their voices that they were able to make themselves heard by one another, for the crowd behind the house still kept up their yells, and knockings, and thumpings, and waited to hear that the wild boar had fled. As the time passed without any such news, they were only stimulated to fresh efforts, and howled more fearfully and yelled more deafeningly. "There's an awful waste of energy and power about here, somehow," said Frank. "There ought to be some way of getting at that wretched beast, without all this nonsense. Here we are,--I don't know how many of us, but the whole population of a town, at any rate, against one,--and what's worse, we don't seem to make any impression." Meanwhile the guide had gone off among the crowd, and while Frank was grumbling, he was busying himself among them, and was engaged in carrying out a very brilliant idea that had just suggested itself to him. In a short time he returned with an armful of something, the nature of which Frank could not quite make out. "What have you got there?" he asked. "What are you going to do?" "Dey are all handkerchiefs." "Handkerchiefs?" "Yes; de handkerchiefs of de population of Albano. Dey are as many as de days of de year." "I should think so," cried Frank, in amazement. "But what are you going to do with them?" "Do wit dem? I am going to make a smoke." "A smoke? What? Are you going to burn them up?" "Dere is notin else to burn; so I must burn what I can. See, I make a bundle of dese. I set fire to dem. Dey burn--dey smoke--and de boar smoke out. Aha! he suffocate--he expire--he run!" "Well, if that isn't the greatest idea I ever heard of!" cried Frank. "Handkerchiefs! Why, you must have hundreds of them in that bundle." The guide smiled, and made no answer. It was a brilliant idea. It was all his own. He was proud of it. He was pleased to think that the number of them was equal to the number of days in the year. Three hundred and sixty-five handkerchiefs collected from the good, the virtuous, the self-sacrificing people of Albano, who were now yelling and howling as before, at the rear of the house, and diversifying the uproar by loud calls and inquiries about the wild boar.