seech you let his lack of years be no impediment to let him
lack a reverend estimation, for I never knew so young a body with
so old a head."--_Merchant of Venice_, Act iv.

When Mr. Bultitude recovered his senses, which was not for a
considerable time, he found that he was being jolted along through a
broad well-lit thoroughfare, in a musty four-wheeler.

His head was by no means clear yet, and for some minutes he could hardly
be said to think at all; he merely lay back dreamily listening to the
hard grinding jar of the cab windows vibrating in their grooves.

His first distinct sensation was a vague wonder what Barbara might be
intending to give him for dinner, for, oddly enough, he felt far from
hungry, and was conscious that his palate would require the adroitest
witching.

With the thought of dinner his dining-room was almost inseparably
associated, and then, with an instant rush of recollection, the whole
scene there with the Garuda Stone surged into his brain. He shuddered as
he did so; it had all been so real, so hideously vivid and coherent
throughout. But all unpleasant impressions soon yielded to the delicious
luxury of his present security.

As his last conscious moment had been passed in his own dining-room, the
fact that he opened his eyes in a cab, instead of confirming his worst
fears, actually helped to restore the unfortunate gentleman's serenity;
for he frequently drove home from the city in this manner, and believed
himself now, instead of being, as was actually the case, in that
marvellous region of cheap photography, rocking-horses, mild stone
lions, and wheels and ladders--the Euston Road--to be bowling along
Holborn.

Now that he was thoroughly awake he found positive amusement in going
over each successive incident of his nightmare experience with the
talisman, and smiling at the tricks his imagination had played him.

"I wonder now how the dickens I came to dream such outrageous nonsense!"
he said to himself, for even his dreams were, as a rule, within the
bounds of probability. But he was not long in tracing it to the devilled
kidneys he had had at the club for lunch, and some curious old brown
sherry Robinson had given him afterwards at his office.

"Gad, what a shock the thing has given me!" he thought. "I can hardly
shake off the feeling even now."

As a rule, after waking up on the verge of a fearful crisis, the effect
of the horror fades swiftly away, as one detail a