I enquired shrewdly.

"I turned it over to old Schmick, sir," said he. He grinned. "I thought
as maybe it belonged to one of his boys."

On the aged caretaker's reappearance, I bluntly inquired what had
become of the doll-baby. He was terribly confused.

"I know nothing, I know nothing," he mumbled, and I could see that he
was miserably upset. His sons towered and glowered and his wife wrapped
and unwrapped her hands in her apron, all the time supplicating heaven
to be good to the true and the faithful.

From what I could gather, they all seemed to be more disturbed over
the fact that my hallucination included a dog than by the claim that
I had seen a woman.

"But, confound you, Schmick," I cried in some heat, "it barked at me."

"Gott in himmel!" they all cried, and, to my surprise, the old woman
burst into tears.

"It is bad to dream of a dog," she wailed. "It means evil to all of
us. Evil to--"

"Come!" said I, grabbing the keys from the old man's unresisting hand.
"And, Schmick, if that dog bites me, I'll hold you personally
responsible. Do you understand?"

Two abreast we filed through the long, vaulted halls, Rudolph carrying