“Hardly.” Burns glanced humorously down at his attire. “But I'm not going to bed just yet, so shut your eyes. I'll not be far away.”
The child obeyed. Exchanging the claw-hammer for his office coat, Burns went out by way of the French window to the rear of the house.
An hour afterward Arthur Chester, putting out lights, discovered from a back window a familiar figure at a familiar occupation. But at this hour of the night the sight struck him as so extraordinary that, curiosity afire, he hurriedly let himself out of the side door he had just locked, and crossed the lawn.
“In the name of all lunatics, Red, why sawing wood? It can't be ill temper at missing the show?”
In the August moonlight the figure straightened itself and laid down the saw. “Go to bed, and don't bother your addle pate about your neighbours. Can't a man cut up a few sticks without your coming to investigate?”
“Saw a few more. You haven't got the full dose necessary yet,” advised Chester, his hands in his pockets. “Want me to sit up with you till you work it all off?”
“It's beginning to look as if it wouldn't work off,” muttered R. P. Burns.
“Must be a worse attack than usual. How long have you been at it?”
“Don't know.”
“Sawed that whole heap at the side there?”