"Are you awake, Mark?" he heard his mother whisper outside.
He answered with a cry of exultation and relief.
"Oh, Mother," he sighed, clinging to the soft sleeves of her dressing-gown. "I thought it was being the end of the world."
"What made you think that, my precious?"
"I don't know. I just woke up, and the room was upside down. And first I thought it was an earthquake, and then I thought it was the Day of Judgment." He suddenly began to chuckle to himself. "How silly of me, Mother. Of course it couldn't be the Day of Judgment, because it's night, isn't it? It couldn't ever be the Day of Judgment in the night, could it?" he continued hopefully.
Mrs. Lidderdale did not hesitate to reassure her small son on this point. She had no wish to add another to that long list of nightly fears and fantasies which began with mad dogs and culminated in the Prince of Darkness himself.
"The room looks quite safe now, doesn't it?" Mark theorized.
"It is quite safe, darling."
"Do you think I could have the gas lighted when you really must go?"
"Just a little bit for once."