“Look at the clock?” he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, and speaking over his hand, and then, getting more fully awake, “certainly.”

Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp, and he rose and stretched himself. Then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, “taken aback.”

“Good afternoon,” said the stranger, regarding him⁠—as Mr. Henfrey says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles⁠—“like a lobster.”

“I hope,” said Mr. Henfrey, “that it’s no intrusion.”