You’d have laughed yourself if you’d seen it—that is, if you’d known the Doctor. There was something so like him in its expression—sort of gloomy and thoughtful—and its little eyes set up high in its head and looking angry at the crowd as if it despised them. When its master jerked the chain and shouted something in a foreign lingo it hitched up its lip like it was trying to smile, and that sideways grin, as if it didn’t feel at all pleasant, was just the way the Doctor’d smile when he came into the Exchange and gave me a number. It fascinated me and I stood staring with little Mick sitting on my arm, just loving it all, his dirty little fist clasped round a penny. Then the music stopped and one of the acrobats came round with a hat and little Mick gave a great sigh as if he was coming out of a dream. "If you hadn’t come, Molly, I’d have missed it," he said, looking into my face in that sweet wistful way sickly kids have, "and it’s the last time they’ll be round this year." I kissed him and put him down and told the men as I squeezed out to keep him in the front or they’d hear from me. Then I walked off toward the woods thinking. It was a funny idea I’d got into my head. I’d once read in a paper that when people looked like animals they resembled the animals in their dispositions—and I was wondering was Dr. Fowler like a bear, grouchy and when you crossed him savage. Maybe it was because I’d been so worried, but it gave me a kind of chill. My thoughts went back to Mapleshade and I got one of those queer glimpses (like a curtain was lifted for a second and you could see things in the future) of trouble there—something dark—I don’t know how to explain it, but it was as if I got a new line on the Doctor, as if the bear had made me see through the surface clear into him. I tried to shake it off for I wanted to enjoy my afternoon in the woods. They are beautiful at that season, the trees full of colored leaves, and all quiet except for the rustlings of little animals round the roots. There’s a road that winds along under the branches, and trails, soft under foot with fallen leaves and moss, that you can follow for miles. I was coming down one of these, making no more noise than the squirrels, when just before it crossed the road I saw something and stopped. There, sitting side by side on a log, were Sylvia Hesketh and a man. Close to them, run off to the side, was a motor and near it tied to a tree a horse with a lady’s saddle. Sylvia was in her riding dress, looking a picture, her eyes on the ground and slapping softly with her whip on the side of her boot. The man was leaning toward her, talking low and earnest and staring hard into her face. [Illustration: _Sylvia was in her riding dress, looking a picture_]