"That's what you always carry about, is it?" I remarked; and Rooum grunted something: Yes … never knew where you'd be next … no harm, was it? We tumbled into bed.
But, for all the lateness of the hour, I wasn't sleepy; so from my own bag I took a book, set the candle on the end of the mantel, and began to read. Mark you, I don't say I was much better informed for the reading I did, for I was watching the V's on the wallpaper mostly—that, and wondering what was wrong with the man in the other bed who had fallen down at a touch in the subway. He was already asleep.
Now I don't know whether I can make the next clear to you. I'm quite certain he was sound asleep, so that it wasn't just the fact that he spoke. Even that is a little unpleasant, I always think, any sort of sleep-talking; but it's a very queer sort of sensation when a man actually answers a question that's put to him, knowing nothing whatever about it in the morning. Perhaps I ought not to have put that question; having put it, I did the next best thing afterwards, as you'll see in a moment … but let me tell you.
He'd been asleep perhaps an hour, and I woolgathering about the wallpaper, when suddenly, in a far more clear and loud voice than he ever used when awake, he said:
"What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?"
That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I really think I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening.
"From seeing whom?" I said, sitting up in bed.
"Whom?… You're not attending. The fellow I'm telling you about, who runs after me," he answered—answered perfectly plainly.
I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and his eyes were closed. He made a slight movement with his arm, but that did not wake him. Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what was happening. I slipped half out of bed. Would he—would he?—answer another question?… I risked it, breathlessly:
"Have you any idea who he is?"