. The houses, too, were so drunk as to be dangerous. They bowed
over him, swaying hideously from their foundations. They seemed to be
attracted, just as he was, by that abominable slimy flow and glister
of the asphalt. Another wriggle of the latch-key, and they would be
over on the top of him.

He approached his bedroom candle with infinite precaution. He had
tried to effect a noiseless entry, but every match, as it spurted and
went out, was a little fiendish spit-fire tongue betraying him. From
behind a bedroom door, ajar at the dark end of the passage, the voice
of Mrs. Downey gently reminded him not to forget to turn the gas out.

There was a bright clear space in his brain which Pilkington's
champagne had not penetrated, so intolerably clear and bright that it
hurt him to look at it. In that space three figures reeled and
whirled; three, yet one and the same; Poppy of the coster-dance, Poppy
of the lunatic ballet, and Poppy of the Arabian night. Beyond the
bright space and the figures there was a dark place that was somehow
curtained off. Something had happened there, he could not see what.
And in trying to see he forgot to turn the gas out. He turned it up
instead.

He left it blazing away at the rate of a penny an hour, a witness
against him in the face of morning. But he did not forget to sit down
at the bottom of the stairs and take his boots off, lest he should
wake Flossie Walker, the little clerk, who worked so hard, and had to
be up so early. He left them on the stairs, where Flossie tripped over
them in the morning.

On the first landing a young man in a frowsy sleeping suit stood
waiting for him. A fresh, sober, and thoroughly wide-awake young man.

"Gurra bed, Spinks," said Mr. Rickman severely to the young man.

"All right, old man." Mr. Spinks lowered his voice to a discreet
whisper. "I say--do you want me to help you find your legs?"

"Wish you'd fin' any par' of me that is n' legs," said Mr. Rickman.
And he went on to explain and to demonstrate to Mr. Spinks the
resemblance (amounting to identity) between himself and the Manx arms.
"Three legs, rampant, on the bend, proper. Amazin', isn't it?"

"It _is_ amazin'."

Feigning surprise and interest, Mr. Spinks relieved him of his candle;
and under that escort Mr. Rickman managed to attain to the second
floor.

Mr. Rickman's room was bared to the glimmer of a lamp in the street
below. He plunged and stumbled through a litter of books. The glimm