Strangely, too, Raikes did not comment upon the singular fact of the narrative itself.
Why should the Sepoy take the trouble to relate it to him, and why should he, of all unconcerned and self-centered men, manifest such an unusual interest in a recital which lacked every practical feature and had nothing but the weird to commend it?
If he asked himself these questions, it was with the impersonality of lethargy, for they were dismissed as readily as they presented themselves.
With such sedative queries, which were gradually diminishing from fabric to ravel, Raikes finally reached his room and, securely bolting the door, began to prepare to retire.
This was not an elaborate proceeding.
His outer garments removed, he had only to seek the seclusion of the bedclothes, clad in the remainder of his attire.
In this manner he economized on the cost of a night-robe and the time it would consume to don and doff such a superfluity.
At all events, if such was not his sordid reasoning, the promptness with which he fell asleep indicated that he did not propose to squander useless time in wakeful speculation upon the intangible nothings to which his recollection of the narrative began to fade.
However, if Raikes had succeeded in passing the boundaries of slumber, he had admitted, at the same time, extravagances of which he would never have been guilty in his wakeful hours, for he found himself so engaged in all sorts of uneasy shiftlessness and inconsiderate expenditure that when morning came and he awoke, as usual, with the sunrise, he resumed his customary identity, peevish and unrefreshed.
For a moment he sat with his knees huddled to his chin, over which his eyes peered like vermin in the wainscoting, and then, urged by an impulse whose source he could not determine, he leaped with surprising agility to the floor and proceeded to the false radiator.