“Holloa!” Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed.
“Awake at last?” says Jasper, coming up to him. “Do you know that your forties have stretched into thousands?”
“No.”
“They have though.”
“What’s the time?”
“Hark! The bells are going in the Tower!”
They strike four quarters, and then the great bell strikes.
“Two!” cries Durdles, scrambling up; “why didn’t you try to wake me, Mister Jarsper?”
“I did. I might as well have tried to wake the dead—your own family of dead, up in the corner there.”
“Did you touch me?”
“Touch you! Yes. Shook you.”
As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks down on the pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to where he himself lay.
“I dropped you, did I?” he says, picking it up, and recalling that part of his dream. As he gathers himself again into an upright position, or into a position as nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is again conscious of being watched by his companion.
“Well?” says Jasper, smiling, “are you quite ready? Pray don’t hurry.”