Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/512

 "I don't see any gas, Doctor."

"Gas, eh? Why, you are a pretty chap to expect such a thing in this part of the house! We should all be burnt in our beds, or blown into next week; no, no, best in the dark. You've got matches? Yes, and a candle? All right! Good-night again," and this time he was really gone.

I listened until the last sound of his footsteps had died away, and then proceeded to make a survey of my surroundings. There was really nothing awe-inspiring in my new quarters. An inviting bed, with a gay silken eider-down stretched across its white coverlet, was the reverse of terrifying, but before testing its good points, I decided to make a hasty investigation around. On inspecting the match-box, to begin with, I experienced a slight shock; it contained exactly three specimens, and, laying them carefully side by side, like the corpses on the shining sands, within easy reach of my hand, I fervently trusted they were good of their kind. I opened a deep cupboard in the corner, and ejected an enormous dressing-gown which confronted me with outstretched arms, and made me feel a little uncomfortable. No resistance being offered to a series of vicious poker-thrusts which I bestowed under the bed, I manfully extinguished the candle (there was only about an inch and a half of it, and I thought it prudent to reserve it for possible emergencies), and got between the sheets.

Here I lay for half an hour or so, watching the antic shadows of the firelight on wall and ceiling, tossing and plunging round and round, and working myself up into a state of restlessness about as far removed from repose as can be imagined. The demon of unrest had got possession of me. In vain I thumped my pillow and turned from side to side; I was fairly on the qui vive for something to happen, and, after ten minutes' more fruitless attempts to sleep, I tumbled out of bed with a groan, wrapped myself in the thick dressing-gown which had startled me a short time before, and, raking together the dying fire into a comfortable blaze, I settled myself in the easy chair before it, and, with my feet on another, resigned myself to wakefulness.

On the table in front of me were a few books—odd volumes of Waverley I found they were—and, opening one listlessly, I began to read. In five minutes, I must record, with due apologies to dear old Sir Walter, that a delicious sense of drowsiness began to steal over me; in ten, the chaste Rebecca was pelting the Templar with ginger-bread nuts, while her wounded knight gobbled up a venison pasty as if he liked it.

Alas, portentous dream! I found myself suddenly wide awake again, this time with the appalling consciousness that I was ravenously hungry. On making this discovery, I sat bolt upright in sheer desperation. I knew what it meant well enough—that sleep was now really out of the question for me till my cravings were satisfied. I reflected that I had eaten nothing since midday, and that I had fully intended an attack on a noble sirloin which had attracted my attention on the dining-room sideboard soon after I had entered the house. In the confusion which followed my arrival, however, I had forgotten my supper;