But when it comes to the future Lindy was right there with the goods. Had it all mapped out for twenty years to come. Uh-huh! She told Sadie about it, ownin' up to bein' near forty, and said that when she was sixty she was goin' to get into an Old Ladies' Home. Some prospect--what? She'd even picked out the joint and had 'em put her name down. It would cost her three hundred and fifty dollars, which she had salted away in the savings bank already, and now she was just driftin' along until she could qualify in the age limit. Livin' just for that! "Ah, can the gloom stuff, Sadie!" says I as she whispers this latest bulletin. "You give me the willies, you and your Lindy! Why, that old horse chestnut out there in the yard leads a more excitin' existence than that! It's preparin' to leaf out again next spring. But Lindy! Bah! Say, just havin' her in the house makes the air seem moldy. I'm goin' out and tramp around the grounds a bit before dinner." That was a good hunch. It's a clear, crisp evenin' outside, with the last red of the sun just showin' in the northwest and a thin new moon hangin' over Long Island Sound off in the east, and in a couple of turns I shook off the whole business. I'd taken one circle and was roundin' the back of the garage, when I sees something dark slip into a tree shadow up near the house. "That you, Dominick?" I sings out. There's no answer to that, and, knowin' that if there's one failin' Dominick don't possess it's bein' tonguetied, I gets suspicious. Besides, a couple of porch-climbin' jobs had been pulled off in the neighborhood recent, and, even though I do carry a burglar policy, I ain't crazy about havin' strangers messin' through the bureau drawers while I'm tryin' to sleep. So I sneaks along the hedge for a ways, and then does the sleuthy approach across the lawn on the right flank. Another minute and I've made a quick spring and has my man pinned against the tree with both his wrists fast and my knee in his chest. "Woof!" says he, deep and guttural. "Excuse the warm welcome," says I, "but that's only a sample of what we pass out to stray visitors like you. Sizin' up the premises, were you, and gettin' ready to collect a few souvenirs?" "A thousand pardons," says he, "if I have seem to intrude!" "Eh?" says I. That wa'n't exactly the comeback you'd expect from a second-story worker, and he has a queer foreign twist to his words. "It is possible," he goes on, "that I have achieved the grand mistake." "Maybe," says I, loosenin' up on him a little. "What was it you thought you was after?" "The house of one McCah-be," says he, "a professor of fists, I am told." "That's a new description of me," says I, "but I'm the party. All of which don't prove, though, that you ain't a crook." "Crook?" says he. "Ah, a felon! But no, Effendi. I come on an errand of peace, as Allah is good." How was that now, havin' Allah sprung on me in my own front yard? Why travel?