occasion I rose because I could not sleep. When I went to
bed on Wednesday night, I lay awake thinking deeply about what I was to
do on the morrow. Daphne had proved inexorable. My brain, usually so
fertile, had become barren, and for my three days' contemplation of the
subject I had absolutely nothing to show. It was past midnight before
I fell into a fitful slumber, only to be aroused three hours and a half
later by the sudden burst of iniquity with which two or more cats saw
fit to shake the silence of the rose-garden.

As I threw out the boot-jack, I noticed the dawn. And as further sleep
seemed out of the question, I decided to dress and go out into the
woods.

When I slipped out of Knight's Bottom into the sunlit road to find
myself face to face with a Punch and Judy show, I was not far from
being momentarily disconcerted. For a second it occurred to me that I
might be dreaming, but, though I listened carefully, I could hear no
cats, so I sat down on the bank by the side of the road and prepared to
contemplate the phenomenon.

When I say 'Punch and Judy show' I am wrong. Although what I saw
suggested the proximity of a Punch and a Judy, to say nothing of the
likelihood of a show, I did not, as a matter of fact, descry any one of
the three. The object that presented itself to my view was the tall,
rectangular booth, gaudy and wide-mouthed, with which, until a few
years ago, the streets of London were so familiar. Were! Dear old
Punch and Judy, how quickly you are becoming a thing of the past! How
soon you will have gone the way of Jack-i'-the Green, Pepper's Ghost,
the Maypole, and many another old friend! Out of the light into the
darkness. The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and in a
little space men shall be content to wonder at your ancient memory as
their grandfathers marvelled at that of the frolics of my Lord of
Misrule. However.

There was the booth. But that was all. It stood quite alone at the
side of the white road. I walked round it. Nothing. I glanced up and
down the road, but there was no one in sight. I had been feeling
hungry, for it was seven o'clock; but this was better than breakfast,
and I returned to the bank. The little red curtains fluttered, as a
passing breeze caught them, and I marked how bright and new they
looked. It was certainly in good condition--this booth.

"Well?" said a voice.

"Well?" said I.

A pause. A girl's voice it was: coming fro