lover. His hurry was never so great as to
prevent him stopping, when in the street, and introducing himself to any
dog he met. In a strange house, his first act was to assemble the canine
population, roll it on its back or backs, and punch it in the ribs. As a
boy, his earliest ambition had been to become a veterinary surgeon; and,
though the years had cheated him of his career, he knew all about dogs,
their points, their manners, their customs, and their treatment in
sickness and in health. In short, he loved dogs, and, had they met under
happier conditions, he would undoubtedly have been on excellent terms
with this one within the space of a minute. But, as things were, he
abstained from fraternising and continued to goggle dumbly.

And then his eye, wandering aside, collided with the following objects:
a fluffy pink dressing-gown, hung over the back of a chair, an entirely
strange suit-case, and, on the bureau, a photograph in a silver frame of
a stout gentleman in evening-dress whom he had never seen before in his
life.

Much has been written of the emotions of the wanderer who, returning to
his childhood home, finds it altered out of all recognition; but poets
have neglected the theme--far more poignant--of the man who goes up to
his room in an hotel and finds it full of somebody else's dressing-gowns
and bulldogs.

Bulldogs! Archie's heart jumped sideways and upwards with a wiggling
movement, turning two somersaults, and stopped beating. The hideous
truth, working its way slowly through the concrete, had at last
penetrated to his brain. He was not only in somebody else's room, and a
woman's at that. He was in the room belonging to Miss Vera Silverton.

He could not understand it. He would have been prepared to stake the
last cent he could borrow from his father-in-law on the fact that he had
made no error in the number over the door. Yet, nevertheless, such was
the case, and, below par though his faculties were at the moment, he was
sufficiently alert to perceive that it behoved him to withdraw.

He leaped to the door, and, as he did so, the handle began to turn.

The cloud which had settled on Archie's mind lifted abruptly. For an
instant he was enabled to think about a hundred times more quickly than
was his leisurely wont. Good fortune had brought him to within easy
reach of the electric-light switch. He snapped it back, and was in
darkness. Then, diving silently and swiftly to the floor, he wriggled
unde