On my way back to my room I tapped at Manning's door and informed him that the bath was ready.
He called out: "Come in," and, accepting his invitation, I discovered him in the act of sharpening his razor, which he had apparently just finished using. He greeted me with a friendly wave of the strop.
"How goes it?" he enquired cheerily. "I hope you managed to get off to sleep. I put in a couple of hours, and I feel as fit as a fiddle this morning."
"That's good," I replied. "You'll be able to do justice to Bascomb's bacon. It's one of the few things he's really sensitive about."
He smiled, and crossing to the washstand began to collect his sponge and towels.
"Did you tell him about our adventures?" he asked. "He must have guessed that somebody got up in the night when he found Satan in the hall this morning."
"I explained that I let him in," I answered. "I was too sleepy to go into details." I paused. "Besides, the whole thing sounds rather ridiculous by daylight, doesn't it?"
"Well, I suppose it might strike anyone else as being a bit comic," he admitted. "Better say nothing about it perhaps; we should be frightfully chipped at the club if the story got round."
His tone was light, almost careless, but it seemed to me that my answer had afforded him considerable relief. I made a mental note of the fact with a view to passing it on to Bobby.
"If I'm not in the dining-room when you come down," I said, "you'll find me just outside the front door. Satan and I generally take a little air before breakfast."