slept there myself, and I know what happens. About the middle of the
night, as you judge, though in reality it may be somewhat later, you are
startled out of your first sleep by what sounds like a rush of cavalry
along the passage, just outside your door. Your half-awakened
intelligence fluctuates between burglars, the Day of Judgment, and a gas
explosion. You sit up in bed and listen intently. You are not kept
waiting long; the next moment a door is violently slammed, and somebody,
or something, is evidently coming downstairs on a tea-tray.

"I told you so," says a voice outside, and immediately some hard
substance, a head one would say from the ring of it, rebounds against the
panel of your door.

By this time you are charging madly round the room for your clothes.
Nothing is where you put it overnight, the articles most essential have
disappeared entirely; and meanwhile the murder, or revolution, or
whatever it is, continues unchecked. You pause for a moment, with your
head under the wardrobe, where you think you can see your slippers, to
listen to a steady, monotonous thumping upon a distant door. The victim,
you presume, has taken refuge there; they mean to have him out and finish
him. Will you be in time? The knocking ceases, and a voice, sweetly
reassuring in its gentle plaintiveness, asks meekly:

"Pa, may I get up?"

You do not hear the other voice, but the responses are:

"No, it was only the bath--no, she ain't really hurt,--only wet, you
know. Yes, ma, I'll tell 'em what you say. No, it was a pure accident.
Yes; good-night, papa."