It was after nine the next morning when Stamford's eyes opened on a world that seemed out of focus. He examined his watch incredulously; the dink of breakfast dishes and the rumble of lowered voices convinced him that it was wrong, and he dressed without hurry.
As he opened the door, the Professor, Isabel and Mrs. Aikens were rising from the table. The sitting-room clock told him that his watch was right after all.
"These prairie nights seem too much for all of us," said Isabel, in answer to his puzzled look.
"Except our host," corrected her brother. "He's been gone an hour."
"It does affect strangers that way," said Mary Aikens, without looking up from the table she was rearranging for Stamford's breakfast.
"It wasn't that with me," explained Stamford. "I didn't sleep well."
"The drive was too much for you," suggested Mrs. Aikens.
"Perhaps Mr. Stamford had too successful a day in town," laughed Isabel, watching him.
"Yes, it was successful," he replied, looking straight at her.
"Perhaps they're serving stronger stuff than they did a couple of weeks ago," hazarded the Professor. "By a chronometer that never deceives, you've been in bed for the circle of the clock. My limit is eight hours. Simple mathematical progression in comparative physical proportions would grant to Imp here the whole twenty-four hours, and a mosquito would overlap on the week after next and still be the creditor of time. But, lord knows, they never sleep. In the meantime some gently dead but brutally fossilised Trachodon is kept waiting beyond his preconceptions of Doomsday for the resurrective hand of the Smithsonian Institute."