She got up from her writing-table and gently opened her bedroom door. The palace was plunged in profound darkness, and somewhere, away in the darkness, somebody was apparently delivering a recitation in snatches. Who could it be? And where? Chloe took her candle, and, turning up her trousers instinctively for fear they should rustle, made softly in the direction of the sound. It chanced that her bedroom was very near the servants' staircase, from which, on Monday morning, Mr. Rodney had heard Mr. Harrison's anxious confidences poured into the distant ear of his imperial master. Chloe knew nothing about this staircase, but, searching for the sound, she presently arrived at a swing-door which opened upon it, and stood on almost the self-same stair as that previously pressed by the feet of the attentive Mr. Rodney. She then heard something that at first absolutely amazed and confounded her.
When the women of the house-party, among whom we will include Chloe, had gone to bed, the Duke, balked of his attempt to engage Chloe as a listener, fastened on Mr. Ingerstall, and led away that unhappy and seething victim of a Providence which sees fit unevenly to distribute muscular development and size to be smoked over and anecdoted at. Mr. Rodney proceeded to go on grinding his teeth and cursing himself as the most miserable of men, and Mr. James Bush went on reposing. He did not hear the powdered Frederick, with sweetly tinkling sounds by his left elbow adjust the drink his soul loved upon an oaken table. He did not hear the persistent grating which betokened the supreme mental agony of the admirable owner of Mitching Dean. He was far away in the land where all things are either forgotten or remembered in a manner more fantastic than the trickery of blank oblivion. And in this land he elected to remain until the Duke's last tale was told, Mr. Ingerstall's last recollection of Paris Quartier Latin days was hissed, Mr. Rodney's last groan was hushed. In short, everybody went off to bed, except Mr. Bush, who had a nasty habit of going to sleep anywhere except in the proper place for such a performance. Even the menials, after watching hopelessly for awhile by the reposing warrior, in hopes to see him wake, placed a lighted candle by his side, switched off the electric light, and skedaddled to the luxuriously-furnished attics provided for them by a thoughtful master. When at length Mrs. Verulam's hero woke, he was alone, in almost total darkness. He heaved himself round, spread forth his arms and clasped the cold, smooth sides of a decanter. The object roused an instinct always latent, when not active, within his heart. Mechanically he took measures to transfer the contents of the decanter to another receptacle, and then, refreshed, he rose, grasped the candle, and made off, a little vaguely, with some fragmentary recollections of bed floating hazily through his mind. Missing the grand staircase, he presently found himself at the foot of another, and was about to ascend, when he heard, as Mr. Rodney had heard, the shrill tinkle of the bell of the Bun Emperor's patent telephone. Mr. Bush paused and scratched his enormous head. The bell rang again. Directing his large eyes towards it, Mr. Bush, who had never before been made known to a telephone, approached his face to it with a view merely of examining it closely, and was suddenly startled by hearing a voice of most extraordinary thinness and spiritualistic quality say, "Are you there? Damn you! are you or aren't you there?"
Mr. Bush paused and endeavoured to reflect, but, failing, again permitted his ear to approach the vehicle, and again heard the same question, afflicted with the same and an additional oath. The gentleman from Bungay was not of very susceptible temperament, but this shadowy voice of the night, speaking so genially and so colloquially, rather fascinated him, and, placing his candle upon the floor, he proceeded to listen attentively.
"Damn you! are you there?" continued the voice. "Did I or did I not tell you you was to watch all night, and be at the tube at three o'clock to the moment? Did I tell you or did I not?"
Silence fell. Mr. Bush remained in an attitude of entrancement. Presently once more the tiny voice took up the wondrous tale.
"If you aren't at the tube in another five minutes, to-morrow you shall be turned into the street, as sure as you're a living man! Into the street you shall go, bag and baggage! Do you hear, you——"
More words of a highly unmentionable character followed, and another but shorter pause, through which Mr. Bush smiled with a solemn appreciation of wide vocabularies. The bell rang violently again.
"—— you, go to the tube directly minute!" resumed the voice. "Go to the tube and answer me, or you'll repent it to the last minute of your natural life, you will!"
These repeated references to a tube, and to the earnest desire of the voice to receive a reply, at length began to take effect on Mr. Bush. He picked up his candle from the floor and let its light fall on the voice, or rather on the voice's near neighbourhood. A tube started to his eye. He slowly unhooked it, and again listened to the voice, which meanwhile had again rung the bell about five-and-fifty times.
"Are you there? Where are you? Where the —— are you? —— you, are you or aren't you there? Why aren't you there? What do you mean by it? Did I or did I not tell you to be there at three o'clock? I say, did I tell you or did I not tell you to be there? You ——, did I or did I——"