this opportunity slip, another might never occur, that I managed to stick out what you might call the initial minute of the binge. Then the weakness passed, and Bertram was himself again.
At first, when I had beetled in, the room had seemed as black as a coal-cellar; but after a bit things began to lighten.
The curtains weren’t quite drawn over the window, and I could see a trifle of the scenery here and there. The bed was opposite the window, with the head against the wall and the end where the feet were jutting out towards where I stood, thus rendering it possible after one had sown the seed, so to speak, to make a quick getaway.
There only remained now the rather tricky problem of locating the hot-water bottle. I mean to say, the one thing you can’t do if you want to carry a job like this through with secrecy and dispatch is to stand at the end of a fellow’s bed, jabbing the blankets at random with a darning needle.
Before proceeding to anything in the nature of definite steps, it is imperative that you locate the bot.
I was a good deal cheered at this juncture to hear a fruity snore from the direction of the pillows. Reason told me that a bloke who could snore like that wasn’t going to be awakened by a trifle. I edged forward and ran a hand in