leeping after daylight unless the daylight was excluded. With
grave apprehension I arranged a series of makeshift screens and
extinguished the lights, wandering round the room and turning off the
key of each one separately, since the architect had apparently forgotten
to put in a central switch.

If there had been no servants in evidence when we wanted them before
dinner, no such complaint could be entered now. There seemed to be a
bowling party going on upstairs. We could also hear plainly the rattle
of dishes and a lively interchange of informalities from the kitchen end
of the establishment. We lay awake tensely. Shortly after one o'clock
these particular sounds died away, but there was a steady tramp of feet
over our heads until three. About this hour, also, the bridge party
broke up and the guests came upstairs.

There were no outside doors to our rooms. Bells rang, water ran, and
there was that curious vibration which even hairbrushing seems to set
going in a country house. Then with a final bang, comparative silence
descended. Occasionally still, to be sure, the floor squeaked over our
heads. Once somebody got up and closed a window. I could hear two
distant snorings in major and minor keys. I managed to snatch a few
winks and then an alarm-clock went off. At no great distance the
scrubbing maid was getting up. I could hear her every move.

The sun also rose and threw fire-pointed darts at us through the
windowshades. By five o'clock I was ready to scream with nerves; and,
having dug a lounge suit out of the gentlemen's furnishing store in my
trunk, I cautiously descended into the lower regions. There was a rich
smell of cigarettes everywhere. In the hall I stumbled over the feet of
the sleeping night-watchman. But the birds were twittering in the
bushes; the grassblades threw back a million flashes to the sun.

Not before a quarter to ten could I secure a cup of coffee, though
several footmen, in answer to my insistent bell, had been running round
apparently for hours in a vain endeavor to get it for me. At eleven a
couple of languid younger men made their appearance and conversed
apathetically with one another over the papers. The hours drew on.

Lunch came at two o'clock, bursting like a thunder-storm out of a
sunlit sky. Afterward the guests sat round and talked. People were
coming to tea at five, and there was hardly any use in doing anything
before that time. A few took naps. A young lady and gentleman