"Hot damn!" he exclaimed, after a pause. "Have I been on a _drunk_! You know, Ponto, I dreamed that I was you and if there's anything in dreams I bet I'm the only Republican in Westchester County that ever married a brindle bitch named Buglebell. "Let's see," he continued. "Where were we? Earlier today I went to the Pond Club and had a couple of drinks. How in hell do I find myself here? I must have drawn one hell of a blank, Ponto, the damndest blank I've ever drawn in my life." His eyes looked down on the seat beside us, where I had left a copy of the morning New York Times. "Hullo!" he exclaimed. "That's funny. Here it is. Good Lord! the twenty-fifth of April! So I've been out for three weeks. That is a blank to end all blanks." He whistled tunelessly between his teeth. Then he cast a glance toward the back seat, where my suitcase rested. "What gives," he inquired. "I'm not leaving home, for God's sake? Ponto, old boy, you just stick by me and we'll go back to the house and see what this is all about." "Yes," I barked at him. "That's a good dog," he said affably. "That's a good Ponto." He backed the Packard into the driveway that had been my nemesis and turned the car around. As we approached the house he slowed the car to a dead stop. "Ponto," he told me. "Here's where you and I go into a committee of the whole. What's been going on around here? There's been one hell of a mix-up if you ask me. I had a dream--" The sooner I got his mind off this subject the safer I would be. I laid my ears back and woofed. "Attaboy!" he agreed. "Now let's take a look at this paper.... What? Roosevelt's dead? Why doesn't anybody tell me these things? And Germany's about to flop? Whew! Who would have dreamed it? You know, hound, I feel like Rip Van Winkle coming back after twenty years sleep." I tried to look ingratiating and let my tongue loll fetchingly out of the side of my mouth. "Say!" he exclaimed harshly. "Now it's beginning to come back. You took my place while I was--God! have _you_ ever been introduced to a great big dog and told she's your wife? Well, damn it! you and Jimmie--Oh, hell, this is one godawful mess! What's been happening around here, anyhow? Am I going nuts?" I pricked up my ears and gave a false, loving whine. I licked his stinking hands. "Okay, okay," Winnie agreed. "It's not your fault. But what the hell happened is beyond me. I hate to think of those prime asses, Phil and Graham, in this market. And what happened to Virginia? That's one gal you didn't know about, Ponto. She's for me, and how!" He took another look at the paper. "Oh, the hell with it!" he growled. "If Jimmie doesn't like it, she knows what she can do about it. Let's go on home, Ponto, and just tell her man-to-man where she gets off." I barked. He put his foot on the accelerator and whirled up the drive to come to a stop in front of Pook's Hill. Before he had switched off the engine, the front door opened and Germaine appeared.