Partitions

Old Woman: I wish these young people would not pull down the partitions.

Clergyman: Why so?

O.W.: Oh, because of the dog…

The Clergyman became confused. What the Old Woman said next filled the Clergyman with a dread he carried for the rest of his days:

“Don’t you know that when Sibyl was fishing in the lake, she caught an enormous fish and that, when it was landed, a great black dog came out of its mouth? Her family could never get rid of that dog —  it kept going round and round in circles inside the house. It became so bad that they sent for a wise man from across the Lesser Sea who manifested the straight lines of the partitions to obstruct the paths of the circles, and so quieted the dog. But if these young people pull down the partitions they will let the dog loose again, and there’s not a wise man nor witch in all the worlds that could lay that dog now.”