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XIII.
A Halt.
MY efforts are useless. I must sojourn here awhile, whether I will or not. The “Halt!” is irresistible.
XIV.
Joannetti.
I REMARKED that I was singularly fond of meditating when influenced by the agreeable warmth of my bed; and that its agreeable color added not a little to the pleasure I experienced.
That I may be provided with this enjoyment, my servant is directed to enter my room half an hour before my time for rising. I hear him moving about my room with a light step, and stealthily managing his preparations. This noise just suffices to convey to me the pleasant knowledge that I am slumbering,—a delicate pleasure this, unknown to most men. You are just awake enough to know you are not entirely so, and to make a dreamy calculation that the hour for business and worry is still in the sand-glass of time. Gradually my man grows noisier; it is so hard for him to restrain himself, and he knows too that the fatal hour draws near. He looks at my watch, and jingles the seals as a warning. But I turn a deaf ear to him. There is no imaginable cheat I do not put upon the poor fellow to lengthen the blissful moment. I give him a hundred preliminary orders. He knows that these orders, given somewhat peevishly, are mere excuses for my staying in bed without seeming to wish to do so. But this he affects not to see through, and I am truly thankful to him.