It had been the servants’ night off.
It had been utterly private.
He was topping it off with uninterrupted snores.
But the night telephone operator at the hospital worked upon the principle that all men past thirty snore. Therefore she took several surreptitious puffs of a cigarette, cut in upon the exchange and settled herself to the task of drowning out a snore ... long, continuous, vibrating, insistent, monotonous....
She was successful.
The monotony of the bell dripped through to Dr. MacArthur’s consciousness. He turned over and put the pillow over his head.
The operator took several more puffs and began again ... this time in the angry insistence of a crying baby.
MacArthur succumbed and reached feebly for the receiver. It was no use. She rang like a wrong number. But it was no use.
He was fully awake but kept his eyes shut, in an endeavor to keep them from aching, which they did anyhow ... terribly.
He fumbled the receiver off the hook.