ve worked the blinking thing out three times. I admit the
answers were entirely different, but that's not my fault. I never did
like astrology. I tell you the beastly chest holds twenty-seven thousand
point nine double eight recurring cubic inches of air. Some other fool
can reduce that to rods, and there you are. I'm fed up with it. Thanks
to the machinations of that congenital idiot with the imitation
mustachios, I've paid more than four times its value, and I'm not going
to burst my brains trying to work out which drawer would have had a
false bottom if it had been built by a dipsomaniac who kept fowls. And
that's that."

Tearfully Miss Childe announced that it was time for her to be going,
and I elected to escort her as far as the garage. As we stepped on to
the pavement--

"I know a lot more about you than you think," said I. "I never told you
half what I dreamed."

"What do you know?"

"Oh, nothing momentous. Just the more intimate details of your everyday
life. Your partiality to mushrooms, your recognition of Love, your
recklessness, pretty peculiarities of your toilet----"

"Good Heavens!" cried Miss Childe.

"But you wouldn't tell me your name."

"False modesty. Seriously you don't mean to say----"

"But I do. Nothing was hid from me. Your little bare feet----"

A stifled scream interrupted me.

"This," said Miss Childe, "is awful." We turned into the mews. "What are
you doing to-morrow?"

"Dictating. You see, there's a dream I want recorded."

"I shall expect you at half-past one. We can start after lunch. I've a
beautiful hand."

"I know you have. Two of them. They were bare, too," I added
reflectively.

With a choking sound, Miss Childe got into the car.

"Half-past one," she said, as she slid into the driver's seat.

"Without fail." I raised my hat. "By the way, who shall I ask for?"

Miss Childe flung me a dazzling smile.

"I've no sisters," she said.

Moodily I returned to the house.

I entered the library to find that the others had retired, presumably to
dress for dinner. Mechanically I crossed to the tallboy, which we had so
fruitlessly surveyed, and began to finger it idly, wondering all the
time whether my dream was wanton, or whether there was indeed some
secret which we might discover. It did not seem possible, and yet....
That distant voice rang in my ears. "Measurements tell, measurements
tell. But they never do that." _What?_

A sudden idea came to me, and I drew out