"Flack." An illuminating sentence floated up.

"Locked himself in the attic." Cossar was continually more wonderful.

He produced great handfuls of cotton wool and stuffed them in his ears--Bensington wondered why.

Then he loaded his gun with a quarter charge of powder.

Who else could have thought of that?
Wonderland culminated with the disappearance of Cossar's twin realms of boot sole up the central hole.
Cossar was on all fours with two guns, one trailing on each side from a string under his chin, and his most trusted assistant, a little dark man with a grave face, was to go in stooping behind him, holding a lantern over his head.