In the Best Families

“I know it, she admitted. “I will from now on, I'll be here more. I was busy to-day. I'll take him out now. It's a perfect night for a good walk-Barry, do you feel like walking?

He didn't. He was nice about it, but he didn't. She broadened the invitation to take in the group, but there were no takers. She offered to walk Leeds and me home, but Leeds said she would go too slow, and he should have been in bed long ago since his rising time was six o'clock. He moved, and told me to come on if I was coming.

We said good night and left.

The outdoor air was sharper now. There were a few stars but no moon, and alone with no flashlight I would never have been able to keep that trail through the woods and might have made the Hillside Kennels clearing by dawn. For Leeds a flashlight would have been only a nuisance. He strode along at the same gait as in the daytime, and I stumbled at his heels, catching my toes on things, teetering on roots and pebbles, and once going clear down. I am not a deerstalker and don't want to be. As we approached the kennels Leeds called out, and the sound came of many movements, but not a bark. Who wants a dog, let alone thirty or forty, not even human enough to bark when you come home?

Leeds said that since the poisoning he always took a look around before going to bed, and I went on in the house and up to the little room where I had put my bag. I was sitting on the bed in pyjamas, scratching the side of my neck and considering Barry Rackham's last-minute remarks, when Leeds entered downstairs and came up to ask if I was comfortable. I told him I soon would be, and he said good night and went down the short hall to his room.

I opened a window, turned out the light, and got into bed; but in three minutes

I saw it wasn't working. My practice is to empty my head simultaneously with dropping it on the pillow. If something sticks and doesn't want to come out I'll give it up to three minutes but no more. Then I act. This time, of course, it was Barry Rackham that stuck. I had to decide that he knew what I was there for or that he didn't, or, as an alternative, decide definitely that I wouldn't try to decide until to-morrow. I got out of bed and went and sat on a chair.

It may have taken five minutes, or it could have been fifteen: I don't know.