"Yep!" agreed the owner of the Chevrolet. "You got a cut or something. Reckon you'd ought to see a doc."
"I will," said the man beside me. "Don't worry. I'll be all right. Just bumped my head a bit."
We waited until the Chevrolet had rattled itself around the turn of the road. Then the man cautiously tried the gears and disinfiltrated the Packard from the apple-tree. He got out and inspected the car carefully for damage and then climbed back behind the steering-wheel. I started to ask him a question. It was a whine.
"Why Ponto!" he exclaimed. "You old black devil. How are you, hound? Long time no see."
"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."
"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."