ching out the tacks to Michael's annoyance.

"Perhaps it isn't," Barnes agreed. "But I've got to find this
watch-bracelet. It's gold. I don't want to lose it."

"Was it a woman's?"

Barnes looked round at him like a small animal alarmed.

"Yes, it was a woman's. What makes you ask?"

"What's it like?"

"Gold. Gold, I keep telling you."

"When did you have it last?"

"Last night."

"Well, it can't have gone far."

"No, blast it, of course it can't," said Barnes, searching with renewed
impatience. He was throwing the clothes about the room again, and the
odor of staleness became nauseating.

"I'm going to wash," Michael announced, moving across to the bedroom.

"You'll excuse the untidiness," Barnes called out after him, in a tone
of rather strained jocularity.

Of Michael's old room no vestige remained. A very large double-bed took
up almost all the space, and all the furniture was new and tawdry. The
walls were hung with studies of cocottes pretending to be naiads and
dryads, horrible women posed in the silvanity of a photographer's
studio. The room was littered with clothes, and Michael could not move a
step without entangling his feet in a petticoat or treading upon hidden
shoes. He tried to splash his face, but the very washstand was sickly.

"Well, you've managed to debauch my bedroom quite successfully," he said
to Barnes, when he came back to the sitting-room.

"That's all right. I'll get rid of all the new furniture. I can pop the
lot. Well, it's mine. If I could find this bloody watch-bracelet, I
could begin to make some arrangements."

"What about breakfast?" Michael began to look for something to eat.
Every plate and knife was dirty, and there were three or four
half-finished tins of condensed milk which had turned pistachio green
and stank abominably.

"There's a couple of herrings somewhere," said Barnes. "Or there was.
But everything seems upside-down this morning. Where the hell is that
watch? It can't have walked away on its own. If that mare took it! I've
a very particular reason for not wanting to lose that watch. Oh, ----
----! wherever can it have got to?"

"Well, anyway shut up using such filthy language. When does the milkman
come round?"

"I don't know when he comes round. Here, Fane, have you ever heard of
anyone talking in their sleep?"

"Of course I've heard of people talking in their sleep," Michael
answered. "It's not very unusual."

"Ah, hollering out, yes--but tal