“I’m Mr. Milberry,” he says, “the grocer, in the High Street.”

“Then what are you doing here with this dog?” I says.

“Don’t irritate me,” he answers.  “I tell you I don’t know myself.  My wife’s stopping here at Warwick, nursing her mother, and in every letter she’s written home for the last fortnight she’s said, ’Oh, how I do long to see Eric!  If only I could see Eric for a moment!’”

“A very motherly sentiment,” I says, “which does her credit.”

“So this afternoon,” continues he, “it being early-closing day, I thought I’d bring the child here, so that she might see it, and see that it was all right.  She can’t leave her mother for more than about an hour, and I can’t go up to the house, because the old lady doesn’t like me, and I excite her.  I wish to wait here, and Milly—­that’s my wife—­was to come to me when she could get away.  I meant this to be a surprise to her.”

“And I guess,” I says, “it will be the biggest one you have ever given her.”

“Don’t try to be funny about it,” he says; “I’m not altogether myself, and I may do you an injury.”

He was right.  It wasn’t a subject for joking, though it had its humorous side.

“But why,” I says, “put it in a dog-basket?”

“It isn’t a dog-basket,” he answers irritably; “it’s a picnic hamper.  At the last moment I found I hadn’t got the face to carry the child in my arms:  I thought of what the street-boys would call out after me.  He’s a rare one to sleep, and I thought if I made him comfortable in that he couldn’t hurt, just for so short a journey.  I took it in the carriage with me, and carried it on my knees; I haven’t let it out of my hands a blessed moment.  It’s witchcraft, that’s what it is.  I shall believe in the devil after this.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I says, “there’s some explanation; it only wants finding.  You are sure this is the identical hamper you packed the child in?”

He was calmer now.  He leant over and examined it carefully.  “It looks like it,” he says; “but I can’t swear to it.”

“You tell me,” I says, “you never let it go out of your hands.  Now think.”

“No,” he says, “it’s been on my knees all the time.”

“But that’s nonsense,” I says; “unless you packed the dog yourself in mistake for your baby.  Now think it over quietly.  I’m not your wife, I’m only trying to help you.  I shan’t say anything even if you did take your eyes off the thing for a minute.”

He thought again, and a light broke over his face.  “By Jove!” he says, “you’re right.  I did put it down for a moment on the platform at Banbury while I bought a ‘Tit-Bits.’”

“There you are,” I says; “now you’re talking sense.  And wait a minute; isn’t to-morrow the first day of the Birmingham Dog Show?”

“I believe you’re right,” he says.

“Now we’re getting warm,” I says.  “By a coincidence this dog was being taken to Birmingham, packed in a hamper exactly similar to the one you put your baby in.  You’ve got this man’s bull-pup, he’s got your baby; and I wouldn’t like to say off-hand at this moment which of you’s feeling the madder.  As likely as not, he thinks you’ve done it on purpose.”