Rather dazed, Bruce got up. He was still trembling, but he made a search for his vest, found it, and secured a match.
The stillness which followed the racket of the bell and the frantic gyrations of the big Yale man seemed awful, and he was more frightened than ever. If he had wished to shout then, it is doubtful if he could have raised a cry that would have been heard outside his door.
The first match he struck spluttered and went out. With the second, he lighted the gas, the odor of which filled the room. Then he looked around, and the sight that met his eyes filled him with wonder.
The chair he had flung across the room had struck a small shelf, and knocked down a clock of the forty-nine-cent variety, smashing it, and scattering its works over the carpet. As he stood there, glaring at its ruins, the truth began to dawn upon him.
“It was that thundering alarm-clock!” he snorted. “The thing went off, and spoiled my slumbers! There is no fire and no danger! I’ve been fooled by a bargain-counter alarm-clock!”
He felt like jumping on the ruins of the poor time-piece, but remembered that he was barefooted, and it would be sure to hurt him. Then his eye caught sight of a slip of paper attached to a ring in the case of the clock. He picked it up. On the paper were these words, written in English:
“Good night!
Sleep tight!”
Browning flung the clock-case into a corner, uttering a “woosh” of indignation.
“That’s what I call a pretty cheap joke!” he exploded. “My first night by myself, and they couldn’t let me rest in peace! Oh, I’ll have revenge for this!”