There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench
broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing,
and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the
chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the
socket. Then the old woman's voice, strained and panting.

"The bolt," she cried, loudly. "Come down. I can't reach it."

But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in
search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside got
in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he
heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the passage
against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came slowly
back, and at the same moment he found the monkey's paw, and frantically
breathed his third and last wish.

The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the
house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold wind
rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and
misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then
to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet
and deserted road.






BILL'S PAPER CHASE