In the dining room we
all sat bent forward, with straining ears and quickened breath,
until we distinctly heard someone laugh. Then we knew that,
whatever it was, it was over, and nobody was killed.
The sounds came closer, were coming up the stairs and into the
pantry. Then the door swung open, and Tom and a policeman
appeared in the doorway, with the others crowding behind. Between
them they supported a grimy, unshaven object, covered with
whitewash from the wall of the shaft, an object that had its
hands fastened together with handcuffs, and that leered at us
with a pair of the most villainously crossed eyes I have ever
seen.
None of us had ever seen him before,
"Mr. Lawrence McGuirk, better known as Tubby,'" Tom said
cheerfully. "A celebrity in his particular line, which is
second-story man and all-round rascal. A victim of the
quarantine, like ourselves."
"We've missed him for a week," one of the guards said with a
grin. "We've been real anxious about you, Tubby. Ain't a week
goes by, when you're in health, that we don't hear something of
you."
Mr. McGuirk muttered something under his breath, and the men
chuckled.
"It seems," Tom said, interpreting, "that he doesn't like us
much. He doesn't like the food, and he doesn't like the beds. He
says just when he got a good place fixed up in the coal cellar,
Flannigan found it, and is asleep there now, this minute.
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