Alice Greggory did not know it, but he was thinking of another story he had once told in that same room.

Billy was his listener then, while now--A little precipitately he began to speak.
"When I was a very small boy I went to visit my uncle, who, in his young days, had been quite a hunter.

Before the fireplace in his library was a huge tiger skin with a particularly lifelike head.

The first time I saw it I screamed, and ran and hid.

I refused then even to go into the room again.