r floor, Uncle Israel moved
cautiously.

He was clad in a piebald dressing-gown which had been so patched with
various materials that the original fabric was uncertain. An old-fashioned
nightcap was on his head, the tassel bobbing freakishly in the back, and
he wore carpet slippers.

Mrs. Dodd sat up in bed, keenly relishing the situation. When he opened a
bureau drawer, she screamed out: "What are you looking for?"

Uncle Israel started violently. "Money," he answered, in a shrill whisper,
taken altogether by surprise.

"Then," said Mrs. Dodd, kindly, "I'll get right up and help you!"

"Don't, Belinda," pleaded the old man. "You'll wake up everybody. I am
a-walkin' in my sleep, I guess. I was a-dreamin' of money that I was to
find and give to you, and I suppose that's why I've come to your room. You
lay still, Belinda, and don't tell nobody. I am a-goin' right away."

Before she could answer in a way that seemed suitable, he was gone, and
the next day he renewed his explanations. "I dunno, Belinda, how I ever
come to be a-walkin' in my sleep. I ain't never done such a thing since I
was a child, and then only wunst. How dretful it would have been if I had
gone into any other room and mebbe have been shot or have scared some
young and unprotected female into fits. To think of me, with my
untarnished reputation, and at my age, a-doin' such a thing! You don't
reckon it was my new pain-killer, do you?"

"I don't misdoubt it had sunthin' to do with payin'," returned Mrs. Dodd,
greatly pleased with her own poor joke, "an', as you say, it might have
been dretful. But I am a friend to you, Israel, an' I don't 'low to make
your misfortune public, but, by workin' private, help you overcome it."

"What air you a-layin' out to do?" demanded Uncle Israel, fearfully.

"I ain't rightly made up my mind as yet, Israel," she answered, pleasantly
enough, "but I don't intend to have it happen to you again. Sunthin' can
surely be done that'll cure you of it."

"Don't, Belinda," wheezed her victim; "I don't think I'll ever have it
again."

"Don't you fret about it, Israel, 'cause you ain't goin' to have it no
more. I'll attend to it. It 's a most distressin' disease an' must be took
early, but I think I know how to fix it."

During her various investigations, she had found a huge bunch of keys
beneath a pile of rubbish on the floor of a closet in an unoccupied room.
It was altogether possible, as she told herself, that one of th