ll you now. You are wrong about the Sleeper."

"How do you know? I thought you didn't know anything--not even about
Pleasure Cities."

Graham paused.

"You don't know," said the old man. "How are you to know? It's very
few men--"

"I _am_ the Sleeper."

He had to repeat it.

There was a brief pause. "There's a silly thing to say, sir, if you'll
excuse me. It might get you into trouble in a time like this," said
the old man.

Graham, slightly dashed, repeated his assertion.

"I was saying I was the Sleeper. That years and years ago I did, indeed,
fall asleep, in a little stone-built village, in the days when there were
hedgerows, and villages, and inns, and all the countryside cut up into
little pieces, little fields. Have you never heard of those days? And it
is I--I who speak to you--who awakened again these four days since."

"Four days since!--the Sleeper! But they've _got_ the Sleeper. They have
him and they won't let him go. Nonsense! You've been talking sensibly
enough up to now. I can see it as though I was there. There will be
Lincoln like a keeper just behind him; they won't let him go about alone.
Trust them. You're a queer fellow. One of these fun pokers. I see now why
you have been clipping your words so oddly, but--"

He stopped abruptly, and Graham could see his gesture.

"As if Ostrog would let the Sleeper run about alone! No, you're telling
that to the wrong man altogether. Eh! as if I should believe. What's
your game? And besides, we've been talking of the Sleeper."

Graham stood up. "Listen," he said. "I am the Sleeper."

"You're an odd man," said the old man, "to sit here in the dark, talking
clipped, and telling a lie of that sort. But--"

Graham's exasperation fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried.
"Preposterous. The dream must end. It gets wilder and wilder. Here am
I--in this damned twilight--I never knew a dream in twilight before--an
anachronism by two hundred years and trying to persuade an old fool that
I am myself, and meanwhile--Ugh!"

He moved in gusty irritation and went striding. In a moment the old man
was pursuing him. "Eh! but don't go!" cried the old man. "I'm an old
fool, I know. Don't go. Don't leave me in all this darkness."

Graham hesitated, stopped. Suddenly the folly of telling his secret
flashed into his mind.

"I didn't mean to offend you--disbelieving you," said the old man coming
near. "It's no manner of harm. Call yourself the Sleeper if it