“Why, sir”—Atkins was afraid to speak—“why, sir, it’s past twelve o’clock.”
“Past twelve, eh? Past twelve,” grumbled Hodmadod, very drowsily.
“Do you recollect, sir,” and Atkins timidly approached the subject—“do you at all recollect, sir, anything you had to do this morning?”
“Humph!” grunted Hodmadod, with half-closed eyes.
Hereupon Atkins took up the bridal waistcoat, and shaking it—quite as if he meant nothing—and smoothing it in the face of Hodmadod, repeated the question. The bridegroom’s eyes gradually fixed themselves upon the snowy garment: light and with it consciousness gleamed within them. Suddenly, Hodmadod sat bolt upright in bed, and violently and rapidly exclaimed—“Atkins, tell me, Atkins! Wasn’t I to be married this morning?”
“This looks a little like it, sir,” said Atkins, at arm’s length exhibiting the waistcoat.
Then Hodmadod, with a groan, fell back in his bed, and cried—“Atkins, Stubbs has poisoned me; when I say poisoned me”—
“My dear fellow,” exclaimed Candituft, bursting into the room; “how delighted am I at last to find you! What is the matter? Poison! Attempted suicide? No doubt, to avoid this marriage. I always thought your heart was not in it. But wherefore poison?”
“When I say poison, I mean—look there”—and Hodmadod pointed to the phial. “Stubbs prescribed it; two doses, one at night, one in the morning. Thought it quite the same to take ’em both at once—they were only to strengthen my nerves, and they’ve”—
“I see; a narcotic. A double dose has been a tremendous sleeping-draught,” said Candituft. “My dear friend—’tis a mercy you ever woke again. I have only just left the Jerichos.”