repeated blankly. "'Look out for Surprises'?--'Shop, Cook, and
Glisten'?" With his hand across his eyes he reeled back slightly
against the wall. "It is I that have gone mad!" he gasped.

A little uncertain whether he was afraid of What-He-Was-About-to-See,
or whether What-He-Was-About-to-See ought to be afraid of him, he
craned his neck as best he could round the corner of the huge buffet
that blocked the kitchen vista. A fresh bewilderment met his eyes.
Where he had once seen cobwebs flapping grayly across the
chimney-breast loomed now the gay worsted recommendation that _dogs
specially_, should be considered in the Christmas Season. Throwing all
caution aside he passed the buffet and plunged into the kitchen.

"Oh, _do_ hurry!" cried an eager young voice. "I thought my hair
would be white before you came!"

Like a man paralyzed he stopped short in his tracks to stare at the
scene before him! The long, bright table! The absolutely formal food!
A blindfolded girl! A perfectly strange blindfolded girl ... with her
dark hair forty years this side of white--_begging him to hurry_!... A
Black Velvet Bag surmounted by a Tiger's head stirring strangely in a
chair piled high with books!... Seated next to the Black Velvet Bag a
Canary as big as a Turkey Gobbler!... A Giraffe stepping suddenly
forward with--with dog-paws thrust into his soup plate!... A White
Rabbit heavily wreathed in holly rousing cautiously from his
cushions!... A Parrot with a twitching black and white short-haired
tail!... An empty chair facing the Girl! _An empty chair facing the
Girl._

"If this is _madness_," thought Delcote quite precipitously, "I am at
least the Master of the Asylum!"

In another instant, with a prodigious stride he had slipped into the
vacant seat.

"... So sorry to have kept you waiting," he murmured.

At the first sound of that unfamiliar voice, Flame yanked the
handkerchief from her eyes, took one blank glance at the Stranger, and
burst forth into a muffled, but altogether blood-curdling scream.

"Oh ... Oh ... Owwwwwwww!" said the scream.

As though waiting only for that one signal to break the spell of their
enchantment, the Canary leaped upward and grabbed the Bengal Tiger by
his muslin nose,--the White Rabbit sprang to "point" on the cooling
turkey, and the Red and Green Parrot fell to the floor in a desperate
effort to settle once and for all with the black spot that itched so
impulsively on his left shoulder!