on dreamily.

Mounting, they knocked upon a solid door.

"Come in," said the voice of Sleep itself.

A little man with a pink face and large red ears was sitting in a fat
pink chair, as if he had been grown there.

"What do you want?" he asked of them, blinking.

"Don't you know me, sir?"

"God bless me! Crocker, isn't it? I didn't recognise you with a beard."

Crocker, who had not been shaved since starting on his travels, chuckled
feebly.

"You remember Shelton, sir?" he said.

"Shelton? Oh yes! How do you do, Shelton? Sit down; take a cigar";
and, crossing his fat little legs, the little gentleman looked them up
and down with drowsy interest, as who should say, "Now, after, all you
know, why come and wake me up like this?"

Shelton and Crocker took two other chairs; they too seemed thinking,
"Yes, why did we come and wake him up like this?" And Shelton, who could
not tell the reason why, took refuge in the smoke of his cigar. The
panelled walls were hung with prints of celebrated Greek remains; the
soft, thick carpet on the floor was grateful to his tired feet; the backs
of many books gleamed richly in the light of the oil lamps; the culture
and tobacco smoke stole on his senses; he but vaguely comprehended
Crocker's amiable talk, vaguely the answers of his little host, whose
face, blinking behind the bowl of his huge meerschaum pipe, had such a
queer resemblance to a moon. The door was opened, and a tall creature,
whose eyes were large and brown, whose face was rosy and ironical,
entered with a manly stride.

"Oh!" he said, looking round him with his chin a little in the air, "am I
intruding, Turl?"

The little host, blinking more than ever, murmured,

"Not at all, Berryman--take a pew!"

The visitor called Berryman sat down, and gazed up at the wall with his
fine eyes.

Shelton had a faint remembrance of this don, and bowed; but the newcomer
sat smiling, and did not notice the salute.

"Trimmer and Washer are coming round," he said, and as he spoke the door
opened to admit these gentlemen. Of the same height, but different
appearance, their manner was faintly jocular, faintly supercilious, as if
they tolerated everything. The one whose name was Trimmer had patches of
red on his large cheek-bones, and on his cheeks a bluish tint. His lips
were rather full, so that he had a likeness to a spider. Washer, who was
thin and pale, wore an intellectual smile.

The little fat host moved the