His voice was quiet and civil enough, but it undoubtedly made me jump, and that brought a malicious twinkle into the little eyes that looked as though they had been studying me at their leisure. They were perhaps less violently bloodshot than before, the massive features calm and strong as they had been in slumber or its artful counterfeit.
"I thought you were asleep?" I snapped, and knew better for certain before he spoke.
"You see, that pint o' pop did me prouder than intended," he explained. "It's made a new man o' me, you'll be sorry to 'ear."
I should have been sorrier to believe it, but I did not say so, or anything else just then. The dull and distant beat came back to the ear. And Levy again inquired if I knew what it was.
"Do you?" I demanded.
"Rather!" he replied, with cheerful certitude. "It's the clock, of course."
"What clock?"
"The one on the tower, a bit lower down, facing the road."
"How do you know?" I demanded, with uneasy credulity.
"My good young man," said Dan Levy, "I know the face of that clock as well as I know the inside of this tower."