The coffee came, and the soup. After Jeff’s refreshment the man in the chair rose. “We will leave you to the care of our good Borrowman,” he said, baring his white, even teeth. “I will be back this evening and, if you are stronger, we will then discuss some rather momentous affairs. Go to sleep now.”
The caressing advice seemed good. Jeff was just dropping off when a disturbing thought intruded itself.
This evening? Then it must be day now. Why did they burn a lamp in daytime? The problem was too much for Jeff. Still pondering it, he dozed off.
When he woke the lamp was yet burning; the objectionable fat man sat by the fire. When he turned his head, presently, Jeff was startled to observe that this man had got hold of an entirely new set of features. Here was an extraordinary thing! Hard features, and unprepossessing still, but clean at least. How very curious!
After a while a simple solution presented itself. It was not the same man at all! Jeff wondered why he had not hit upon that at first. It seemed that he had now become a body entirely surrounded by fat men—no—that wasn’t right. “Let me—let me name the Supreme Court of a nation and I care not who makes the laws.” No, that was John Wesley Pringle’s gag. Good old Wes’! Wonder where he is? He wasn’t fat. How did that go? Oh, yes! “Let me have men about me that are fat!”—Something snapped—and Jeff remembered.
Not all at once. He lay silent, with closed eyes, and pieced together scraps of recollection, here and there, bit by bit. It was like a picture puzzle; so much so that Jeff quite identified each random memory with some definite shape, eagerly fitting them together in a frame; and, when he had adjusted them satisfactorily to a perfect square, fell peacefully asleep.
Chapter IV
“Good fellow, thy shooting is good,
An’ if thy heart be as good as thy hand,
Thou art better than Robin Hood.”