“Lord!” said Mr. Mergleson, “all them other things; they clean drove ’im out of my ’ed. I suppose ’e’s up there, hiding somewhere....”
He paused. His eye consulted the eye of Thomas.
“’E’s got behind a curtain or something,” said Mr. Mergleson....
“Queer where ’e can ’ave got to,” said Mr. Mergleson....
“Can’t be bothered about ’im,” said Mr. Mergleson.
“I expect he’ll sneak down to ’is room when things are quiet,” said Thomas, after reflection.
“No good going and looking for ’im now,” said Mr. Mergleson. “Things upstairs,—they got to settle down....”
But in the small hours Mr. Mergleson awakened and thought of Bealby and wondered whether he was in bed. This became so great an uneasiness that about the hour of dawn he got up and went along the passage to Bealby’s compartment. Bealby was not there and his bed had not been slept in.
That sinister sense of gathering misfortunes which comes to all of us at times in the small hours, was so strong in the mind of Mr. Mergleson that he went on and told Thomas of this disconcerting fact. Thomas woke with difficulty and rather crossly, but sat up at last, alive to the gravity of Mr. Mergleson’s mood.
“If ’e’s found hiding about upstairs after all this upset,” said Mr. Mergleson, and left the rest of the sentence to a sympathetic imagination.