The other three bent over the still unconscious bailiff.
"He's not dead, is he?" asked Jimmy anxiously.
"No," Kathleen reassured him, "his heart's beating. Mabel and I felt it in his wrist, where doctors do. How frightfully good-looking he is!"
"I never know what you mean by good-looking," said Jimmy, and suddenly a shadow fell on the marble beside them and a fourth voice spoke--not Mabel's; her hurrying figure, though still in sight, was far away.
The children looked up--into the face of the eldest of the Ugly-Wuglies, the respectable one. Jimmy and Kathleen screamed. I am sorry, but they did.
"Hush!" said Gerald savagely: he was still wearing the ring. "Hold your tongues! I'll get him away," he added in a whisper.
"Very sad affair this," said the respectable Ugly-Wugly. He spoke with a curious accent; there was something odd about his r's, and his m's and n's were those of a person labouring under an almost intolerable cold in the head. But it was not the dreadful "oo" and "ah" voice of the night before. Kathleen and Jimmy stooped over the bailiff. Even that prostrate form, being human, seemed some little protection. But Gerald, strong in the fearlessness that the ring gave to its wearer, looked full into the face of the Ugly-Wugly--and started. For though the face was almost the same as the face he had himself painted on the school drawing-paper, it was not the same. For it was no longer paper. It was a real face, and the hands, lean and almost transparent as they were, were real hands. As it moved a little to get a better view of the bailiff it was plain that it had legs, arms--live legs and arms, and a self-supporting backbone. It was alive indeed--with a vengeance.
"How did it happen?" Gerald asked with an effort at calmness--a successful effort.
"Most regrettable," said the Ugly-Wugly. "The others must have missed the way last night in the passage. They never found the hotel."
"Of course," said the Ugly-Wugly. "Most respectable, exactly as you said. Then when I came away--I didn't come the front way because I wanted to revisit this sylvan scene by daylight, and the hotel people didn't seem to know how to direct me to it--I found the others all at this door, very angry. They'd been here all night, trying to get out. Then the door opened--this gentleman must have opened it--and before I could protect him, that underbred man in the high hat--you remember----"