and we all slept till about four next morning, when we woke up and found
the tramp 'ad gone and left the front door standing wide open.

"We took a careful look-out, and by-and-by first one started off and then
another to see whether their wives and children 'ad been eaten or not.
Not a soul 'ad been touched, but the wimmen and children was that scared
there was no doing anything with 'em. None o' the children would go to
school, and they sat at 'ome all day with the front winder blocked up
with a mattress to keep the tiger out.

"Nobody liked going to work, but it 'ad to be done and as Farmer Gill
said that tigers went to sleep all day and only came out toward evening
we was a bit comforted. Not a soul went up to the 'Cauliflower' that
evening for fear of coming 'ome in the dark, but as nothing 'appened that
night we began to 'ope as the tiger 'ad travelled further on.

"Bob Pretty laughed at the whole thing and said 'e didn't believe there
was a tiger; but nobody minded wot 'e said, Bob Pretty being, as I've
often told people, the black sheep o' Claybury, wot with poaching and,
wot was worse, 'is artfulness.

"But the very next morning something 'appened that made Bob Pretty look
silly and wish 'e 'adn't talked quite so fast; for at five o'clock
Frederick Scott, going down to feed 'is hins, found as the tiger 'ad been
there afore 'im and 'ad eaten no less than seven of 'em. The side of the
hin-'ouse was all broke in, there was a few feathers lying on the ground,
and two little chicks smashed and dead beside 'em.

"The way Frederick Scott went on about it you'd 'ardly believe. He said
that Govinment 'ud 'ave to make it up to 'im, and instead o' going to