lars for it. Little did I guess how dear it would be at any price!

Meanwhile that steak was late, and now that the temporary excitement of
the evening was wearing off I fell dull again. What a dark, sodden
world it was that frowned in on me as I moved over to the window and
opened it for the benefit of the cool air, and how the wind howled
about the roof tops. How lonely I was! What a fool I had been to ask
for long leave and come ashore like this, to curry favour with a set of
stubborn dunderheads who cared nothing for me--or Polly, and could not
or would not understand how important it was to the best interests of
the Service that I should get that promotion which alone would send me
back to her an eligible wooer! What a fool I was not to have
volunteered for some desperate service instead of wasting time like
this! Then at least life would have been interesting; now it was dull
as ditch-water, with wretched vistas of stagnant waiting between now
and that joyful day when I could claim that dear, rosy-checked girl for
my own. What a fool I had been!

"I wish, I wish," I exclaimed, walking round the little room, "I wish I
were--"

While these unfinished exclamations were actually passing my lips I
chanced to cross that infernal mat, and it is no more startling than
true, but at my word a quiver of expectation ran through that gaunt
web--a rustle of anticipation filled its ancient fabric, and one frayed
corner surged up, and as I passed off its surface in my stride, the
sentence still unfinished on my lips, wrapped itself about my left leg
with extraordinary swiftness and so effectively that I nearly fell into
the arms of my landlady, who opened the door at the moment and came in
with a tray and the steak and tomatoes mentioned more than once already.

It was the draught caused by the opening door, of course, that had made
the dead man's rug lift so strangely--what else could it have been? I
made this apology to the good woman, and when she had set the table and
closed the door took another turn or two about my den, continuing as I
did so my angry thoughts.

"Yes, yes," I said at last, returning to the stove and taking my stand,
hands in pockets, in front of it, "anything were better than this, any
enterprise however wild, any adventure however desperate. Oh, I wish I
were anywhere but here, anywhere out of this redtape-ridden world of
ours! I WISH I WERE IN THE PLANET MARS!"

How can I describe what follo