They ran and locked themselves in the kitchen, where they could look through the window--all except Miss Eyester, who declared dramatically that she had no further interest in life anyhow and wished to die by his hand, knowing herself responsible for what had happened.
Wallie, breathless from running, arrived with the axe, which he handed to Mr. Hicks, who called warningly as he swung it: "Stand back, Pinkey!--I'm comin'!"
The door crashed and splintered, and when it opened, Mr. Hicks fell in with it.
He fell out again almost as quickly, for there was Pinkey with the glaring eyes of a wild man, his jaws open, and from his mouth there issued a strange white substance.
"He's frothin'!" Mr. Hicks yelled shrilly. "He's got hydrophoby! Look out for him everybody!"
"G-gg-ggg-ough!" gurgled Pinkey.
"Who bit you, feller?" the cook asked, soothingly.
"G-ggg-gg-ough!" was the agonized answer.
"We'll have to throw and hog-tie him." Mr. Hicks looked around to see if there was a rope handy.
"Don't let him snap at you," called Mr. Stott from a safe distance. "If it gets in your blood, you're goners."
The cook who, as Pinkey advanced shaking his head and making vehement gestures, had retreated, was suddenly enlightened: "That ain't froth--it's plaster o' Paris--I bet you! Wait till I get a stick and poke it!"
Pinkey nodded.
"That's it!" Mr. Hicks cried, delightedly: "He's takin' a cast of his gooms--I told him about it."
The look he received from Pinkey was murderous.
"How are we going to get it out?" Wallie asked in perplexity.
"It's way bigger than his mouth," said Mr. Appel, and old Mr. Penrose suggested humorously: "You might push it down and make him swallow it."
"Maybe you could knock a little off at a time or chisel it," ventured Mr. Budlong. "It's hard as a rock," feeling of it. "You'll have to crack it."
"It's like taking a hook out of a cat-fish," said the cook, facetiously. "Say, can you open your mouth any wider?"
Pinkey made vehement signs that his mouth was stretched to the limit.
"It's from ear to ear now, you might say," observed Mr. Budlong. "If you go to monkeying you'll have the top of his head off."
"If I could just get my fist up in the roof somehow and then pry down on it." The size of Mr. Hicks' fist, however, made the suggestion impractical.
"I believe I can pick it off little by little with a hairpin or a pair of scissors or something." Miss Eyester spoke both confidently and sympathetically.
Pinkey nodded, his eyes full of gratitude and suffering.
"Don't laugh at him," she pleaded, as they now were howling uproariously. "Just leave us alone and I'll manage it somehow."