Arrived at the room, Mudd turned on the electric light, and then, between them, they got the reveller to bed. Folding his coat, Mudd, searching in the pockets, found a brass door-knocker. "Good Lord!" murmured Mudd. "He's been a-takin' of knockers."
He hid the knocker in a drawer and proceeded. Two pounds ten was all the money to be found in the clothes, but Simon had retained his watch and chain by a miracle.
Bobby was astonished at Simon's pyjamas, taken out of a drawer by Mudd; blue and yellow striped silk, no less.
"He'll be all right now, and I'll have another look at him," said Mudd. "Come down, Mr. Robert."
"Mudd," said Bobby, when they were in the hall again, "what is it?"
"He's gone," said Mudd; "gone in the head."
"Mad?"
"No, not mad; it's a temporary abrogation. Some of them new diseases, the doctor says. It's his youth come back on him, grown like a wisdom tooth. Yesterday he was as right as you or me; this morning he started off for the office as right as myself. It must have struck him sudden. Same thing happened last year and he got over it. It took a month, though."
"Good heavens!" said Bobby. "I met him in a bar, by chance. If he's going on like this for a month you'll have your work cut out for you, Mudd."