I.
Sleep does not necessarily shun the bed of the wicked. She is a wanton mistress, and will cuddle where her fancy chances, careless whether vice or virtue is her bedfellow; coy when most eagerly supplicated, seductive when least desired.
George, steeped in crime, snuggled warmly to her until aroused by a rude shaking.
Night-capped and dressing-gowned, white-faced and trembling, awful in grief Mr. Marrapit stood near him.
“Get up! The Rose of Sharon is lost.”
“Impossible!”
“I tell you it is so. Up!”
George pushed a shaking leg out of bed. He was had unawares. As a sleeper pitched sleeping into the sea, so from unconsciousness he was hurled plump into the whirlpool of events. And as the sleeper thus immersed would gulp and sink and kick, so now he blinked, shivered, and gasped.
He repeated: “Impossible!”
“I tell you it is so. I have eyes; I have been to her room.” Mr. Marrapit's voice rose in a wailing cry. “I have been to her room. Gone! Gone!”