Yet they seemed to begin again directly, and this was a horrid crop! Of course he was back in Hyde Park; but the sky must have rained red paint in his absence, or else the earth was red-hot and the sky reflected it. No! the grass was too wet for that. It might have been wet with blood. Everything was as red as beet-root, as wet and red and one’s body weltering in it like the slain! Reddest of all was the old photographer, who turned into Mr. Spearman in cap and gown, who turned into various members of the Upton family, one making more inconsequent remarks than the other, touching wildly on photography and the flitting soul, and between them working the mad race up to such a pace and pitch that Pocket woke with a dreadful start to find Dr. Baumgartner standing over him once more in the perfectly pallid flesh.
“I’ve had a beast of a dream!” said Pocket, waking thoroughly. “I’m in a cold perspiration, and I thought it was cold blood! What time is it?”
“A quarter to six,” said the doctor, who had invited the question by taking out his watch.
“A quarter to twelve, you mean!”
“No—six.”
And the boy was shown the dial, but would not believe it until he had gaped at his own watch, which had stopped at half-past three. Then he bounded to his feet in a puerile passion, and there lay the little garden, a lake of sunlight as he remembered it, swallowed up entirely in the shadow of the house.
“You promised to wake me!” gasped Pocket, almost speechless. “You’ve broken your word, sir!”
“Only in your own interest,” replied the other calmly.
“I believe you were waiting for me to wake—to catch my soul, or some rot!” cried the boy, with bitter rudeness; but he looked in vain for the stereoscopic or any other sort of camera, and Dr. Baumgartner only shrugged his shoulders as he opened an evening paper.
“I apologise for saying that,” the boy resumed, with a dignity that sounded near to tears. “I know you meant it for the best—to make up for my bad night—you’ve been very kind to me, I know! But I was due in Welbeck Street at twelve o’clock, and now I shall have to bolt to catch the six-thirty from St. Pancras.”