Jack took hold of the door, as if to steady himself, then, in an instant, darting through, pulled it after him (just missing Sellick’s fingers), turned the key on the outside, went down the stairway with flying leaps, and ran as for his life; leaving court, constable, witnesses, and spectators locked up in the room together, prisoners in his place, with abundant leisure to find something to laugh at besides him and his spilled milk!
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WEAK-EYED Judge Garty, having sanded the warrant by which Jack was to have been conveyed to jail, and winked hard over it for about fifteen seconds (giving at least six winks to the second) to see that it was all right, shook it in the air at the empty space occupied a moment before by the jolly constable.
“Here! Sellick! where are you? Here’s our _mittimus_,” he was saying, when occurred the pleasant little catastrophe related in our last chapter.
The room was filled with confusion in an instant, sounds of men laughing, crying out, rushing to and fro, and clamoring at door and window.
“What’s the matter?” called Squire Peternot, in a loud, stern voice. “Where’s the constable? where’s the prisoner?”
“Gone?” cried Judge Garty, rising to his feet, still shaking his paper and winking blindly. “He can’t go without our warrant! Sellick knows better ’n that!”
“But the boy don’t!” cried Sellick, running to the table.
“The boy!” echoed Peternot; “where is he?”
“Gone—got away—took leg-bail,” answered several voices at once, in the general tumult. “He’s left his hat, though!”
“Why ain’t you—why don’t somebody—ketch him!” gasped out Peternot, striding towards the door.
“Screw-driver! pair of shears! anything!” said Sellick, searching the table, “to force the lock!”
“The lock? the lock?” said the judge, like one just waking from sleep in a strong light.
“Yes, man!” said Sellick, unable to take an altogether serious view of even so serious a matter; “boy has gone for more milk; ’fraid he wouldn’t find us here when he got back, so he turned the key! Tongs!” And he sprang to the empty fireplace.
Peternot reached the door, and found his nephew, Mr. Byron Dinks, standing beside it in a comical attitude.