suppose men eat. Out of that room I went into yet another, where a fat
woman with a hooked nose was seated holding something white in front of
her. I bolted under the thing on which she was seated and lay there.
She saw me come and began to shriek also, and presently a most terrible
noise arose outside.

All the spotted dogs were in the house, baying and barking, and
everybody was yelling. Then for a minute the dogs stopped their clamour,
and I heard a great clatter of things breaking and of teeth crunching
and of the Red-faced Man shouting--

"Those cursed brutes are eating the hunt lunch. Get them out, Jerry, you
idiot! Get them out! Great heavens! what's the matter with her Ladyship?
Is any one murdering her?"

I suppose that they couldn't get them out, or at least when they did
they all came into the other room where I was under the seat on which
the fat woman was now standing.

"What is it, mother?" I heard Tom say.

"An animal!" she screamed. "An animal under the sofa!"

"All right," he said, "that's only the hare. Here, hounds, out with her,
hounds!"

The dogs rushed about, some of them with great lumps of food still
in their mouths. But they were confused, and all went into the wrong
places. Everything began to fall with dreadful crashes, the fat woman
shrieked piercingly, and her shriek was--