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Bennett, Arnold, 1867-1931

"The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories"

So that this reference to the roof shocked them. The night
did not favour the theory of view-gazing.
"Cook says she heard the weather-vane creaking ever since she went
upstairs after dinner, and now it's stopped; and she can hear Goldie
a-myowling like anything."
"Is cook in her attic?" asked Mrs Ebag.
"Yes'm."
"Ask her to come out. Mr Ullman, will you be so very good as to come
upstairs and investigate?"
Cook, enveloped in a cloak, stood out on the second landing, while Mr
Ullman and the ladies invaded her chamber. The noise of myowling was
terrible. Mr Ullman opened the dormer window, and the rain burst in,
together with a fury of myowling. But he did not care. It lightened and
thundered. But he did not care. He procured a chair of cook's and put it
under the window and stood on it, with his back to the window, and
twisted forth his body so that he could spy up the roof. The ladies
protested that he would be wet through, but he paid no heed to them.
Then his head, dripping, returned into the room. "I've just seen by a
flash of lightning," he said in a voice of emotion. "The poor animal has
got his tail fast in the socket of the weather-vane.


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