“'We're dead men, I think, Brittles' I says,” continued Giles; “'but don't be frightened.'”

“Was he frightened?” asked the cook.

“Not a bit of it,” replied Mr. Giles. “He was as firm – ah! pretty near as firm as I was.”

“I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me,” observed the housemaid.

“You're a woman,” retorted Brittles, plucking up a little.

“Brittles is right,” said Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; “from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittles's hob, and groped our way down stairs in the pitch dark, – as it might be so.”

Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently, in common with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair. The cook and housemaid screamed.

“It was a knock,” said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity. “Open the door, somebody.”

Nobody moved.

“It seems a strange sort of a thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning,” said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; “but the door must be opened. Do you hear, somebody?”

Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Brittles; but that young man, being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that the inquiry could not have any application to him; at all events, he tendered no reply. Mr. Giles directed an appealing glance at the tinker; but he had suddenly fallen asleep. The women were out of the question.

“If Brittles would rather open the door, in the presence of witnesses,” said Mr. Giles, after a short silence, “I am ready to make one.”

“So am I,” said the tinker, waking up, as suddenly as he had fallen asleep.

Brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party being somewhat re-assured by the discovery (made on throwing open the shutters) that it was now broad day, took their way up stairs; with the dogs in front. The two women, who were afraid to stay below, brought up the rear. By the advice of Mr. Giles, they all talked very loud, to warn any evil-disposed person outside, that they were strong in numbers; and by a master-stroke of policy, originating in the brain of the same ingenious gentleman, the dogs' tails were well pinched, in the hall, to make them bark savagely.

These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast by the tinker's arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said), and gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed; the group, peeping timorously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion.

“A boy!” exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly pushing the tinker into the background. “What's the matter with the – eh? – Why – Brittles – look here – don't you know?”

Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, than he uttered a loud cry. Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by one leg and one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged him straight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof.