"It's a kind of housebreaking," Dudley said, ripples of fun passing over
his face; "I don't mind visiting sick people if we go in at their
windows like this!"

But Roy's little face was full of anxious gravity and purpose, and he
checked Dudley's inclination to laugh at once.

He accomplished his part successfully, and then poor Dudley was hauled
and pulled at till purple in the face, and breathless with exertion, he
exclaimed, "I'm being squashed to a jelly; let go, I can't do it!"

"Just one more try--now then--there, we've done it!"

But Roy's exclamation of delight was drowned in an awful crash, as
Dudley swept off some shelves a bowl of milk, two plates, and a cup of
soup, and fell to the ground himself in the midst of it all.

Immediately a man's voice called out, "Who's there! Hi! Help! Thieves!
Help!"

Roy darted into the kitchen, and confronted a tall, hollow-cheeked man
who had scrambled out of his bed in the chimney corner, and stood
trembling from head to foot clutching hold of the bed-post, and coughing
violently.

He did not seem at all appeased at the sight of the boys, but shook his
fist at them in a paroxysm of fright and rage.

"Go away, you young blackguards--a robbin' honest folk, and a darin' to
show yer impudent faces, and disturbin' a dyin' man, knowin' as he's too