“They’re all sitting round the fire and Manunderthebed is making a speech.”

“What’s he saying?” asked Ann anxiously.

“I can’t hear, but he’s awful cross.  Now the Little Black Man has gone—­now he’s come back again, and—­oh!”

“What is it?  What is it?” cried Ann and Rudolf.

“He’s got three animals on a chain—­a bear, an’—­an’—­a lion—­an’ a great big white wolf!”

“Oh, Peter, darling, you know they’re only dream animals!” Ann hastily reminded him.

“Well, they’re most as nice as real ones, they’re awful fierce—­”

“What’s the Little Black Man doing with ’em?” interrupted Rudolf.

“He’s letting them loose,” said Peter, “and they’re smelling round—­”

“He’s putting them by the tree to guard us—­that’s what he’s doing,” broke in Rudolf.

“To swallow us up if we ever do escape!” wailed Ann, now thoroughly frightened.  “Oh, Rudolf, whatever shall we do?”

Rudolf hastily lowered Peter to the floor and got down off the table.  “Ann,” said he, “there must be another way out.  In books there always are two ways out of secret rooms, and this,” he added cheerfully, “is the bookiest thing that’s happened to us yet.  Come, let’s look again for it.”

He and Ann began the search once more, going over and over the walls by the light of their candles, but without any success.  Peter was nosing about by himself in a little recess by the fireplace, and soon the other two heard him give a gleeful chuckle.

“What is it?  Have you found the spring of the secret door?” cried Rudolf, running to him.

“Nope,” said Peter.  “It’s nicer than that, it’s a cake.  I found it right here on this little shelf that you went past and never noticed.”

“Oh, Peter,” Ann scolded, “I think you are the very greediest little boy I ever knew!”

“That cake belongs to Manunderthebed, and you know it,” said Rudolf sternly.  “It’s a dream cake, of course, a Bad-dream cake, so you can’t eat it.”

Peter clasped the small round cake tightly to his breast.

“It’s a nice seed-cake like Cook makes,” he said stubbornly, “and I must eat it.”

“The seeds in it are poppy-seeds,” explained Rudolf, “and you’ll go to sleep and dream Bad Dreams forever, like the Knight-mare said, so you sha’n’t eat it!” He tried to get the cake away from his naughty little brother who only grasped it the more tightly.  There would have been a quarrel, and a fierce one, if it had not been for Ann.

“I tell you,” said she, “let’s try it on the animals!”

This seemed a really bright idea, and Rudolf agreed at once, though Peter considered it wasteful.  Ann had to coax some time, but at last she persuaded him to part with his cake.  Rudolf would not trust Peter with the distributing, so he piled three fat dictionaries that lay on the table one on top of another and climbed upon them himself, managing in this way to bring his eye to the level of the little window.  The plum-pudding fire was burning very low by this time, and Rudolf could barely make out the forms of some of the Bad Dreams who were stretched on the ground around it.