As soon as he had spoken, the sergeant was overwhelmed with a sense of his own utter foolishness; the girl was obviously nothing more than a trick of imagination and everyone knew that such things, no matter how industriously one might question them, could not answer back. "I'm looking for the key," Toffee replied amiably. "Marc fainted, but I guess he's better now, or I wouldn't be here, would I? I have to go away when he's asleep but when he wakes up I come right back again." * * * * * The sergeant jumped to his feet, upsetting his chair with a deafening clatter. "Here, now!" he yelled. "Stop that!" "Stop what?" Toffee asked innocently. "Stop talking to me, now!" Sergeant Feeney gasped. "I'm a sober upright minion of the law, and it's not right that the likes of you should come jabberin' around so's I can hear it." "Well, I don't see why not," Toffee said bewilderedly. "How am I going to get the key, if I don't ask you for it?" "There you go again!" the sergeant wailed. Trembling in every fiber of his great hulking being, he turned away from her. "If you don't stop it, now," he said, "I'm going to close my eyes, and then you won't be there." "But I have to have the key," Toffee protested. "That does it!" the sergeant said woundedly. He closed his eyes so tightly they might never have existed. "There, now!" "Where?" Toffee said. The sergeant visibly flinched. "Where what?" he asked faintly. "Where's the key?" "What key, for heaven's sake?" "The key to the cages, of course. Where is it?" The sergeant sighed. Then he straightened, and when he spoke again there was an edge of craftiness to his voice. "If I point out the key to you, will you take it and go away?" "Instantly," Toffee agreed. Promptly the sergeant pointed to the wall where the key hung on a metal hook. "Help yourself," he said grandly. "And a pleasant journey to you." "Thank you very much," Toffee said. "For so complete an imbecile, you've been most cooperative." Moving to the hook, she removed the key, and swinging it lightly on her finger, left the room. The sergeant waited until he heard the door close, then opened his eyes. Looking about, he began to chuckle to himself. "Now, isn't it a wonder how easy you can outsmart a hallucination?" he said to himself. "She's gone away happy as a lark, and anybody knows a mere thing out of the thin air could never steal a key." * * * * * Only five minutes later Marc and Toffee descended the steps of the jail and paused for a moment in the sun. Marc, still a little woozy in the head, waited for his thoughts to clear. "Are you sure he gave you that key?" he asked. "He fairly begged me to take it," Toffee said. She glanced around happily at the bright spring day. "What wonderful weather," she said. "It makes you want to buy things, doesn't it, scandalous things that hold you in just enough so that you can go all out. If you know what I mean."