came to the last gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your

arms--and so, don't you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't!

He wasn't! I wheeled round from the looking-glass to him. There was

nothingl I was alone, with the flaring candles and a staggering mind.

What had happened? Had anything happened? Had I been dreaming? . . .

And then, with an absurd note of finality about it, the clock upon

the landing discovered the moment was ripe for striking ONE. So!--Ping!

And I was as grave and sober as a judge, with all my champagne and

whisky gone into the vast serene. Feeling queer, you know--confoundedly

QUEER! Queer! Good Lord!"



He regarded his cigar-ash for a moment. "That's all that happened," he

said.



"And then you went to bed?" asked Evans.



"What else was there to do?"



I looked Wish in the eye. We wanted to scoff, and there was something,

something perhaps in Clayton's voice and manner, that hampered our

desire.



"And about these passes?" said Sanderson.



"I believe I could do them now."



"Oh!" said Sanderson, and produced a penknife and set himself to grub

the dottel out of the bowl of his clay.



"Why don't you do them now?" said Sanderson, shutting his pen-knife

with a click.



"That's what I'm going to do," said Clayton.



"They won't work," said Evans.



"If they do--" I suggested.



"You know, I'd rather you didn't," said Wish, stretching out his legs.



"Why?" asked Evans.



"I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.



"But he hasn't got 'em right," said Sanderson, plugging too much

tobacco in his pipe.



"All the same, I'd rather he didn't," said Wish.



We argued with Wish. He said that for Clayton to go through those



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