“He’s hurt his legs,” explained William.  “He hurt his legs at the Blue Cow.  He’s jus’ restin’!”

Mrs. Brown swallowed and counted twenty to herself.  It was a practice she had acquired in her youth for use in times when words crowded upon her too thick and fast for utterance.

At last she spoke with unusual bitterness.

“Need he rest with his muddy boots on my chesterfield?”

At this point Mr. Jones awoke from sleep, hypnotised out of it by her cold eye.

He was profuse in his apologies.  He believed he had fainted.  He had had a bad headache, brought on probably by exposure to the early morning sun.  He felt much better after his faint.  He regretted having fainted on to the lady’s sofa.  He partially brushed off the traces of his dirty boots with an equally dirty hand.

“You’ve done nothing in this room,” said Mrs. Brown.  “We shall never get finished.  William, come away!  I’m sure you’re hindering them.”

“Me?” said William in righteous indignation. “Me? I’m helpin’!”

After what seemed to Mrs. Brown to be several hours they began on the heavy furniture.  They staggered out with the dining-room sideboard, carrying away part of the staircase with it in transit.  Mrs. Brown, with a paling face, saw her beloved antique cabinet dismembered against the doorpost, and watched her favourite collapsible card-table perform a thorough and permanent collapse.  Even the hat-stand from the hall was devoid of some pegs when it finally reached the van.

“This is simply breaking my heart,” moaned Mrs. Brown.

“Where’s William?” said Ethel, gloomily, looking round.

“’Sh!  I don’t know.  He disappeared a few minutes ago.  I don’t know where he is.  I only hope he’ll stay there!”

The removers now proceeded to the drawing-room and prepared to take out the piano.  They tried it every way.  The first way took a piece out of the doorpost, the second made a dint two inches deep in the piano, the third knocked over the grandfather clock, which fell with a resounding crash, breaking its glass, and incidentally a tall china plant stand that happened to be in its line of descent.

Mrs. Brown sat down and covered her face with her hands.

“It’s like some dreadful nightmare!” she groaned.

Messrs. Blake, Johnson and Jones paused to wipe the sweat of honest toil from their brows.

“I dunno ’ow it’s to be got out,” said Mr. Blake despairingly.

“It got in!” persisted Mrs. Brown.  “If it got in it can get out.”

“We’ll ’ave another try,” said Mr. Blake with the air of a hero leading a forlorn hope.  “Come on, mites.”

This time was successful and the piano passed safely into the hall, leaving in its wake only a dislocated door handle and a torn chair cover.  It then passed slowly and devastatingly down the hall and drive.