Running down the steps, he set out at a rapid pace for the Hotel Astor; which in due time received and harboured him for the night.
V
Awakening at a late hour in a small bedroom bright with sunlight, Mr. Matthias treated himself to a moment of incredulity. Such surroundings were strange to his drowsy perceptions, and his transitory emotions on finding himself so curiously embedded might be most aptly and tersely summed up in the exclamation of the old lady in the nursery rhyme: "Lack-a-mercy, can this be I?"
Being, however, susceptible to a conviction of singular strength that he was himself and none other; and by dint of sheer will-power overcoming a tremendous disinclination to do anything but lie still and feel perfectly healthy, sound, and at peace with the world: he induced himself to roll over and fish for his watch in the pocket of the coat hanging on a nearby chair.
The hour proved to be half-past ten.
He fancied that he must have been uncommonly tired to have slept so late.
Then he remembered.
"One doesn't need to get drunk to be daft," was the conclusion he enunciated to his loneliness.
"I hope to goodness she doesn't go poking through my papers!"