He ducked again over the letters and came up, looking chagrined.
"Moreover, I am forced to confess, gentlemen, that I fail to find a system—any rule governing these ridiculous transformations. The hypothesis is, therefore, that the alleged materializations merely follow the arbitrary caprice of the magic." He shook his head. "Well, gentlemen, I—really, I must laugh!"
And he did! I hadn't caught the drift of what it was he thought he was laughing at—I got the words, but I was too dashed sleepy to get the sense. But I was awfully glad I understood this much—that what he was attempting now was a laugh. I never would have known it. It was more like a shrieking squeak—rusty hinge, you know, that sort of thing.
"First-time-I've-laughed-in-twenty-years!" His shrill cackle ran a treble scale that ended in high C. "I know you—you won't believe it!"
"Believe it?" said Billings drily, "I'd bet a purse on it." He whispered to me: "Don't need any affidavit; it shows. Sounds like a country wagon on a down grade, brake on, and shrieking like a banshee."
Behind me the door opened slightly. I turned to see Jenkins, looking devilish chalky and a little wild-eyed. He lifted a coil of stout sash cord questioningly.
"Eh? Why, no!" I whispered through the opening. "He's just laughing. Don't be a jolly ass!" And I closed the door sharply.
The professor looked up from the pajamas, and folding his arms, eyed Billings with a cunning leer.
"I think I see," he said, leveling his finger. "You have both demonstrated how nonsensical is the assertion in this inscription. Doubtless you desire an experiment upon my part to confirm your proof of its absurdity. Reductio ad absurdum—eh, gentlemen?"
Billings looked at me, but I couldn't help him. Why, dash it, I didn't even know yet what the inscription was. And, by Jove, I didn't know what experiments he wanted to try with the pajamas, but I didn't care. He could boil them, if he wanted to, if he would only let us get to bed.