The feeling of the company was one of profound disappointment.  They were disgusted at the anticlimax.  For an instant, when the Efficient one did not move, a hope began to stir; but as soon as it was seen that he was not even injured, gloom reigned.  One of two things would have satisfied them—­either a burglar or a corpse.  A burglar would have been welcome, dead or alive; but, if Baxter proposed to fill the part adequately it was imperative that he be dead.  He had disappointed them deeply by turning out to be the object of their quest.  That he should not have been even grazed was too much.

There was a cold silence as he slowly raised himself from the floor.  As his eyes fell on the tongue, he started and remained gazing fixedly at it.  Surprise paralyzed him.

Lord Emsworth was also looking at the tongue and he leaped to a not unreasonable conclusion.  He spoke coldly and haughtily; for he was not only annoyed, like the others, at the anticlimax, but offended.  He knew that he was not one of your energetic hosts who exert themselves unceasingly to supply their guests with entertainment; but there was one thing on which, as a host, he did pride himself—­in the material matters of life he did his guests well; he kept an admirable table.

“My dear Baxter,” he said in the tones he usually reserved for the correction of his son Freddie, “if your hunger is so great that you are unable to wait for breakfast and have to raid my larder in the middle of the night, I wish to goodness you would contrive to make less noise about it.  I do not grudge you the food—­help yourself when you please—­but do remember that people who have not such keen appetites as yourself like to sleep during the night.  A far better plan, my dear fellow, would be to have sandwiches or buns—­or whatever you consider most sustaining—­ sent up to your bedroom.”

Not even the bullets had disordered Baxter’s faculties so much as this monstrous accusation.  Explanations pushed and jostled one another in his fermenting brain, but he could not utter them.  On every side he met gravely reproachful eyes.  George Emerson was looking at him in pained disgust.  Ashe Marson’s face was the face of one who could never have believed this had he not seen it with his own eyes.  The scrutiny of the knife-and-shoe boy was unendurable.

He stammered.  Words began to proceed from him, tripping and stumbling over each other.  Lord Emsworth’s frigid disapproval did not relax.

“Pray do not apologize, Baxter.  The desire for food is human.  It is your boisterous mode of securing and conveying it that I deprecate.  Let us all go to bed.”

“But, Lord Emsworth-----”

“To bed!” repeated his lordship firmly.

The company began to stream moodily upstairs.  The lights were switched off.  The Efficient Baxter dragged himself away.  From the darkness in the direction of the servants’ door a voice spoke.