By Jove, not a word! Everything as silent as the tomb!
I didn't like it a bit—so mysterious, you know. Besides, dash it, the thing was getting me all waked up! I just knew if once I got excited and thoroughly awake, it would take me nearly ten minutes to get to sleep again. And, by Jove, just then the excitement came, for I got hold of the fact after I had stared at it a while, that the door of my apartment opening into the outer corridor was standing ajar. Why, dash it, it was not only standing, it was moving. Then suddenly the broad streak of light from the corridor widened under the impulse of a freshening breeze, and the door swung open with a bang.
And then I heard my name spoken.
By Jove, I had been standing there with my mouth open, bobbing my head like a silly dodo; but, give you my word, I was suddenly wide awake as a jolly owl wagon!
Away down the corridor, by the mail chute, a man was standing, reading a framed placard. Nothing particularly remarkable in this, but as the door banged he turned his head sharply and ejaculated:
"Dammit! Now, that will wake Lightnut!"
I was surprised, because I couldn't recall ever having seen him before; yet, standing as he did under the light, I had opportunity for a devilish good view.
He was a heavy set old party, rather baldish, with snowy mutton chops and a beefy complexion that was jolly well tanned below the hatband line, you know. The kind of old boy you size up as one of the prime feeder sort and fond of looking on the wine when it is Oporto red. Had something of the cut of the retired India colonels one sees about the Service clubs in London—straight as a lamp post still, but out of training and in devilish need of tapping—that sort of duck, you know!
What a respectable-looking old party might be up to, wandering around a bachelor apartment building at three in the morning, was none of my business. What's more, you know, I didn't care a jolly hang. But the thing that dashed me was that just as I moved toward the door to close it, he uttered my name again and came straight toward me as though to speak.
So I had to wait, by Jove, for I couldn't close the door in his face. Awfully rotten thing to do—that, you know.