The brickmaker says he was weeping with terror when at last the door was
opened.

"Bolt," said the doctor, "bolt"--he could not say "bolt the door." He
tried to help, and was of no service. The brickmaker fastened the door,
and the doctor had to sit on the chair beside the clock for a space
before he could go upstairs....

"I don't know what they _are_!" he repeated several times. "I don't know
what they _are_"--with a high note on the "are."

The brickmaker would have got him whisky, but the doctor would not be
left alone with nothing but a flickering light just then.

It was long before the brickmaker could get him to go upstairs....

And when the fire was out the giant rats came back, took the dead horse,
dragged it across the churchyard into the brickfield and ate at it until
it was dawn, none even then daring to disturb them....


II.

Redwood went round, to Bensington about eleven the next morning with the
"second editions" of three evening papers in his hand.

Bensington looked up from a despondent meditation over the forgotten
pages of the most distracting novel the Brompton Road librarian had been
able to find him. "Anything fresh?" he asked.