standing on its body and kneading into the thick yellow hair. Flame
replied from time to time by little licks of the tongue, most of them
curiously misdirected.

But Dr. Silence felt intuitively that something disastrous had happened,
and his heart was wrung. He stroked the dear body, feeling it over for
bruises or broken bones, but finding none. He fed it with what remained
of the sandwiches and milk, but the creature clumsily upset the saucer
and lost the sandwiches between its paws, so that the doctor had to feed
it with his own hand. And all the while Smoke meowed piteously.

Then John Silence began to understand. He went across to the farther
side of the room and called aloud to it.

"Flame, old man! come!"

At any other time the dog would have been upon him in an instant,
barking and leaping to the shoulder. And even now he got up, though
heavily and awkwardly, to his feet. He started to run, wagging his tail
more briskly. He collided first with a chair, and then ran straight into
a table. Smoke trotted close at his side, trying his very best to guide
him. But it was useless. Dr. Silence had to lift him up into his own
arms and carry him like a baby. For he was blind.


III

It was a week later when John Silence called to see the author in his
new house, and found him well on the way to recovery and already busy
again with his writing. The haunted look had left his eyes, and he