THERE was no need for me to watch that night. I knew that the kind person in the brass bed would not let anything hurt me, but I never had such troubled dreams in my life. I was running over vast dump heaps, and everywhere I went a terrible monster pursued me, with two enormous red eyes. I tried to hide in the ashes, and behind heaps of tin cans, but it came round every corner and leaped over every obstacle, and several times I had nightmare and cried out in my anguish.
“Mrs. Martin spoke to me very quietly, and then I sank down on my bed again. Not until I heard the rattle of milk cans as the dairyman came up the back entrance to the hotel did I sink into a really refreshing sleep.
“When I woke up it was high noon, and Mrs. Martin sat by a window sewing. I was
ashamed of myself, and lay trembling in every limb, for I quite well remembered the nightmare.
“She threw down her work and looked at me. ‘Poor little creature, how you must have been hunted! Come here and tell me your life history.’
“I shambled out of the closet, walking with my legs half doubled under me, as if I were a very old dog.
“‘Stand up, Billy Sunday,’ she said. ‘I am not going to hurt you. Now tell me, where did you come from?’
I stood up beside her, looking this way and that way, my ears laid back. I fancy I appeared a perfect simpleton. Suddenly I caught sight of another poor, dirty, whipped-looking cur across the room, and I gave a frightened ‘Bow-wow,’ and ran back to my closet.
“She was laughing heartily. ‘Poor doggie, did you never see a cheval glass before? Come here and look at yourself.’
“With every hair bristling, I walked stiff-legged out of the closet, all ready to snarl at my rival. I went close up to the glass, touched