Being as silent as she could, she crept down into the cellar, and cautiously opened the door of his room. The cot was still folded, up against the wall. "How strange," she said, entering the room. There was nothing there to show the room's occupancy except his wooden box against the far wall under the window. "I wonder--" she said, half-aloud, "where he's gone to?" At that moment, the sun went down, and the lid of the box opened up. "Yipe!" said Mrs. Tibbets, as Vandor Thobal sat up in the box. His hands arrested themselves in the process of brushing the soil from his cloak. "What are you doing in here!?" he demanded. "What are _you_ doing _there_?" she countered, folding her arms. Vandor swallowed, then seemed to think of something. "The mushrooms," he explained, rising to his awesome full height before her, the tiny clods of earth rolling off his cloak back into the box. "They--They need heat, you see. It's rather chilly here in the cellar at night, and so, I've taken to sleeping in there, hoping my body heat will suffice to help them grow." "I never heard of such a thing!" said Mrs. Tibbets. "Did you never hear of a chicken incubating an egg?" he said smoothly. Mrs. Tibbets was taken aback at this. "Why--Yes, of course, but--" "It's the same principle, really," he said, flashing his pointed teeth in a wide smile at her. "Yes--" she said, with a funny cold feeling inside her. "Yes, I suppose it is." Suddenly, without another word, she turned about and hurried upstairs. She couldn't get the padlock on the door fast enough to suit her. * * * * * "Whew!" she gasped, sinking into a kitchen chair. "I've never been so jittery in my life." At the rear window of the kitchen, just over the cellar door, she heard something, a kind of beating, flapping sound, but when she turned to look through the window, there was nothing there. "Brrr," she shuddered. "Someone must be walking over my grave." She began to make a pot of tea to warm herself up. She was having her second cup when the bright idea struck her. "He'll be so grateful," she said, hurrying into the front hall to search through the junk in the closet there. She hadn't liked the look in his eyes when she'd last seen him. Perhaps he'd be so angry with her that he'd leave, and then she'd have to refund what remained of the five hundred dollars. This really gave her something to worry about. "But," she half-sang to herself, taking out the box from the closet, "this will make him change his mind. _Anyone_ would be grateful not to have to sleep in a dirty old box like that another night...." * * * * * "Hello!" she chirped, as Vandor opened the door to his room. "I got up early to surprise you." "Mrs. Tibbets ..." he said, closing the door behind him with an odd, intent stare, "for once, I am very glad to see you."