The next difficulty was to get it into the van.  Messrs. Blake, Johnson and Jones tried alone and failed.  For ten minutes they tried alone and failed.  Between each attempt they paused to mop their brows and throw longing glances towards the Blue Cow, whose signboard was visible down the road.

The gardener, the cook, the housemaid, and Ethel all gave their assistance, and at last, with a superhuman effort, they raised it to the van.

They then all rested weakly against the nearest support and gasped for breath.

“Well,” said Mr. Jones, looking reproachfully at the mistress of the house, “I’ve never ’andled a pianner——­”

At this moment a well-known voice was heard in the recesses of the van, behind the piano and sideboard and hat-stand.

“Hey! let me out!  What you’ve gone blockin’ up the van for?  I can’t get out!”

There was a horror-stricken silence.  Then Ethel said sharply: 

“What did you go in for?”

The mysterious voice came again with a note of irritability.

“Well, I was restin’.  I mus’ have some rest, mustn’t I?  I’ve been helpin’ all mornin’.”

“Well, couldn’t you see we were putting things in?”

The unseen presence spoke again.

“No, I can’t.  I wasn’t lookin’!”

“You can’t get out, William,” said Mrs. Brown desperately.  “We can’t move everything again.  You must just stop there till it’s unpacked.  We’ll try to push your lunch in to you.”

There was determination in the voice that answered, “I want to get out!  I’m going to get out!”

There came tumultuous sounds—­the sound of the ripping of some material, of the smashing of glass and of William’s voice softly ejaculating “Crumbs! that ole lookin’ glass gettin’ in the way!”

“You’d better take out the piano again,” said Mrs. Brown wanly.  “It’s the only thing to do.”

With straining, and efforts, and groans, and a certain amount of destruction, the piano was eventually lowered again to the ground.  Then the sideboard and hat-stand were moved to one side, and finally there emerged from the struggle—­William and Jumble.  Jumble’s coat was covered with little pieces of horsehair, as though from the interior of a chair.  William’s jersey was torn from shoulder to hem.  He looked stern and indignant.

[Illustration:  WILLIAM’S JERSEY WAS TORN FROM SHOULDER TO HEM.  HE LOOKED STERN AND INDIGNANT.]

“A nice thing to do!” he began bitterly.  “Shuttin’ me up in that ole van.  How d’you expect me to breathe, shut in with ole bits of furniture.  Folks can’t live without air, can they?  A nice thing if you’d found me dead!”

Emotion had deprived his audience of speech for the time being.

With a certain amount of dignity he walked past them into the house followed by Jumble.

It took another quarter of an hour to replace the piano.  As they were making the final effort William came out of the house.