Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/118

 sky. He had noticed that a line through Orion's Belt leads to the Dog Star, just as though the Dog was following his master on a leash.

One evening this man had been sitting at his desk for several hours. He went out, about midnight, for his usual look at the sky. If you live in the city you don't think much about the weather, but one of the pleasures of the country is keeping an eye on the changes of wind and cloud. To his surprise, when he went on the porch he found that everything had changed while he had been absorbed in his work. A wet autumn fog had come up, very thick. When he looked off the far end of the porch it was so dark he could see nothing. There were no stars at all. There was the rustle and drip of the wet woods, and far down in the harbour the tugs that tow the gravel barges were whistling anxiously to each other. Somewhere out in the Sound a siren was groaning like an unhappy cow. It was a good evening to be safe at home, and he thought comfortably of his couch in the corner of the room. There he could lie, with a warm light above his head, and read a detective story and perhaps eat a piece of cheese while he was reading. That was one of his bad habits.