in the cupboard," he said, "just to satisfy
myself no one is hiding there--for every one in the house knows how I
hate this beastly bathroom--with the intention of playing me a
practical joke. Supposing one of the maids--Polly, for example, I'm
sure she'd be quite capable--took it into her pretty head to"--but
here the Captain was obliged to stop; he really was not equal to
facing, even in his mind's eye, the situation such a supposition
involved, and at the bare idea of such a thing his countenance assumed
a deeper hue, and--I am loth to admit--an amused grin. The grin,
however, died out as he cautiously opened the door and peered
furtively in; no one--nothing was there! With a breath of relief he
closed the door again, placed a chair against it, and, sitting down,
proceeded to pull off his clothes. Coat, vest, under-garments, he
placed them all tenderly in an untidy heap on the floor, and then,
with a last lingering, affectionate look at them, walked sedately
towards the bath. But this sedateness was only momentary. The first
few steps he walked, but, a noise in the grate startling him, he
suddenly assumed an air of the greatest gaiety, and, bowing with mock
gallantry to his trousers, he now waltzed coquettishly to the bath. It
was grim, horribly grim, and horribly hot too, for, when he felt the
temperature with one of his squat, podgy toes, it made him swear quite
involuntarily. Turning on the cold water, and slapping his thighs
playfully, he felt again. Too hot yet, far too hot even for him! He
loved heat. More cold! and he was hoisting one chubby leg to feel
again, when, a repetition of the noise in the grate making him swing
round, he lost his balance, and descended on the floor with a hard, a
very hard, bump. For some seconds he lay still, too sulky and
aggrieved even to get up, but, the draught from under the ill-fitting
door tickling his bare flesh in the most immodest fashion, he roused
himself from this lethargy, and was about to raise himself from the
floor, when the lights went out--went out without a moment's warning,
and he found himself engulfed in the most funereal darkness. To say he
was startled is to put it very mildly--he was absolutely
terror-stricken--far too terror-stricken to think of moving now, and
least of all of getting up and groping for the matches. Indeed, when
he came to think of it, he had not seen any matches in the room, and
he had not brought any with him, his wife had flurried him so