The somnambulist chattered:
“I’ve been put out of four hotels already for walking into other people’s rooms, and once I got arrested. I’ve doctored for it.”
While lamenting his inability to discuss his proposition with the engineer, the last thing Bruce anticipated was to be engaged before daylight in the humane and neighborly act of warming Wilbur Dill’s back, but so it is that Chance, that humorous old lady, thrusts Opportunity in the way of those in whom she takes an interest.
Bruce was so full of his subject that he saw nothing unusual in propounding his questions in Mr. Dill’s ear under the covers in the middle of the night.
“How many horse-power could you develop from a two-hundred-feet head with a minimum flow of eight hundred miners’ inches?”
“Hey?” Mr. Dill’s muffled voice sounded startled.
Bruce repeated the question, and added:
“I’m going out on the stage in the morning and it leaves before you’re up. I’d like mightily to know a few things in your line if you don’t mind my asking.”
He was leaving, was he? Going out on the stage? Figuratively, Mr. Dill sat up.