ladder-like flight to the garret. Involuntarily they had paused
to listen at the foot of the stairs, but it was very quiet,
not a sound of movement, not so much as the sigh of a man breathing.
The wife turned pale and put both her shaking hands on her heart.

"Guess he's trying to scare us by keeping quiet!" said Olsen, cheerfully,
and he stumbled up the stairs, in advance. "Thunder!" he exclaimed,
on the last stair, "well, we aint any too quick."

In fact Carl had nearly fallen over the master of the house,
that enterprising self-destroyer having contrived, pinioned as
he was, to roll over to the very brink of the stair well,
with the plain intent to break his neck by plunging headlong.

In the dim light all that they could see was a small, old man whose
white hair was strung in wisps over his purple face, whose deep set
eyes glared like the eyes of a rat in a trap, and whose very elbows
and knees expressed in their cramps the fury of an outraged soul.
When he saw the new-comers he shut his eyes and his jaws.

"Well, Mr. Lieders," said Olsen, mildly, "I guess you better
git down-stairs. Kin I help you up?"

"No," said Lieders.

"Will I give you an arm to lean on?"

"No."

"Won't you go at all, Mr. Lieders?"