'I know that, said Blake. 'Tell me when it's ready.

'But you're sitting at the table!

'The man has a right to sit wherever he may wish, stormed the House.

'Yes, sir, said the Kitchen.

The House relapsed into silence and Blake sat in the chair, bone tired.

The wallpaper of the room, he saw, had been animated. Although, come to think of it, it wasn't really wallpaper. The House had pointed that out to him the day he had arrived.

There were, he thought, so many new things, that he often was confused.

It was a woodland scene, interspersed with meadows, and with a brook that ran through woods and meadow. A rabbit came hopping deliberately along. It stopped beside a clump of clover and settled down to nibble at the blossoms. Its ears went back and forth and it scratched itself, holding its head to one side and hitting gentle strokes with a ponderous hind leg. The brook sparkled in the sunlight as it ran down a tiny rapid and there were flecks of foam and fallen leaves riding on its surface. A bird flew across the scene and landed in a tree. It raised its head and sang, but there was no sound. One could tell that it was singing by the trembling of its throat.

'Would you like the sound turned on? asked the Dining-room.

'No, thank you. I don't believe I would. I want just to sit and rest. Some other time, perhaps.

To sit and rest and think — to get it figured out. To try to find what had happened to him and how it might have happened, and why, of course, as well. And to determine who or what he was, what he had been and what he might be now. It all was, he thought, a nightmare happening while he was wide awake.

Although, when morning came, it might be all right again, it might seem all right again. The sun would be shining then and the world be bright. He'd go out for a walk and talk with some of the neighbours up and down the street and it would be all right. Perhaps if he just forgot about it, brushed it from his mind — that, perhaps, would be the best way to handle it. It might not happen again and if it didn't happen, there'd be no need to worry.