Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/181

Rh office door was ajar. I remembered that I had left it so when I came to bed. Through the opening a dim light was visible. I peeped in.

I had expected to find that my guest would take the shape of the individual who had dogged my footsteps home from Camford Street. I hardly know on what I based my expectation, but there it was. A single glance, however, was sufficient to show that “guest” should read “guests,” for they were three. One was the pock-marked gentleman in question; a second was seemingly his brother—they were as alike as two peas; the third was as remarkable a person as I had ever yet beheld. He was of uncommon height and uncommon thinness. I never saw a smaller head set on human shoulders. My impression was that it was a monstrously attenuated monkey, which had thrown a yellow dust sheet about it anyhow. And it was only when I perceived the deftness with which the contents of my drawers were being emptied out upon the table that it occurred to me that, man or monkey, it was advisable I should interfere.

Just as I had decided that it was about time for me to have a finger in the pie, my beady-eyed acquaintance of the afternoon lighted on the God of Fortune, which I had tossed upon the table on my return from Pryor’s. Snatching it up with a curious cry, he handed it to his monkey-headed friend. That long-