't fly, but slides noiselessly down an inclined
plane, and one is in a state of perpetual surprise.
_Surprise the first._--You wake and are surprised to find it so early.
_Happy Thought._--Go to sleep again.
You turn round, snuggle down, and snooze. A mere snooze until they call
you. It being their duty to call you, let 'em do it manfully, and you'll
do yours.
_Second Surprise._--To awake again. Later than you had expected. Must
get up.
_Happy Thought._--No use getting up, though, until you've been properly
called, and the hot water's there. Besides, you'll be the only one down.
Employ the time, until the servant comes, in _thinking_. Think what
you'll do to-day. Think what you'll do first. Put things in order in
your mind, then when you get up you'll only have to do them one after
the other, and there you are--or there you will be. Excellent plan,
this. These arrangements being satisfactorily made mentally, you
suddenly find yourself very warm, and then very wakeful, so much so that
it is a
_Third Surprise_--on looking at your watch again--to find that it's an
hour since you last consulted it. Odd. You _must_ have been to sleep
again. Very odd. And "it's too bad of them;" (of course) they've never
called you.
_Happy Thought._--Ring the bell for some one to come and call me.
If the bell is by the bed, this is simple. If it isn't, certain
arrangements are as necessary as if you were going to make a journey.
Inquiries, as it were, concerning the route from the bed to the
bell-pull have to be made. This ascertained, and the exact line you have
to travel being now clear before you, it is evident that you cannot be
so venturesome as to attempt the excursion without your slippers and
dressing-gown.
Here commence manoeuvres to obtain both articles, while incurring the
smallest possible danger of catching the slightest possible cold, or
chill.
Then after a series of gymnastic efforts, during which you have nearly
begun your day out of bed on your head, you are successful. It is then
requisite to pause and take breath. This cessation of energy affords an
opportunity for the servant to appear with your hot water, without your
inconveniencing yourself any further.
However he doesn't come, and so you get out. Here the freshening breeze
which blows over the threshold, under the door, and across the carpet,
causes you, for one second, to hesitate, and then foreseeing that the
longer you stop out, _en deshabi
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