th beat
joyously in the knowledge that it is almost time to eat!

Twelve o'clock! Cold turkey, cranberry sauce, champagne, etc., and no
more fasting till the sixth day. Having devastated the board, we must
needs betray our folly by comparing the several timepieces. Alf stood at
five minutes to eleven; Bartholomew some minutes behind him; Croesus,
with his infallible repeater, was but 10:45; as for me, I had discreetly
run down. The secret was out. The clock had been tampered with, and the
trusting maids betrayed. At first they laughed with us; then they
sneered, and then they grew wroth, and went apart in deep dismay. The
dining-hall resounded with our hollow mirth; like the scriptural fool,
we were laughing at our own folly. The ladies solemnly re-entered; our
hostess, the spokeswoman, said, with the voice of an oracle, "You will
regret this before morning." Still feigning to be merry, we went
speedily to bed, but there was no night-cap sent to soothe us; and the
lights went out noiselessly and simultaneously.

After the heavy and regular breathing had set in--I think all slept save
myself--light footsteps were heard without. Why should one turn a key in
a bungalow whose hospitality is only limited by the boundary line of the
county surveyor? Our keys were not turned, in fact,--too late--we
discovered there were no keys to turn. In the dim darkness--the moon
lent us little aid at the moment--our door was softly thrown open, and
the splash of fountains could be heard; it was the sound of many waters.
As I listened to it in a half dream, it fell upon my ear most musically,
and then it fell upon my nose, and eyes, and mouth; it seemed as if the
windows of heaven were opened, as if the dreadful deluge had come again.
I soon discovered what it was. I threw the damp bed clothes over my head
and awaited further developments. I began to think they never would
come--I mean the developments. Meanwhile the garden hose, in the hands
of the irate maidens, played briskly upon the four quarters of the
room--not a bed escaped the furious stream. Nothing was left that was
not saturated and soaked, sponge-full. The floor ran torrents; our boots
floated away upon the mimic tide. We lay like inundated mummies, but
spake never a word. Possibly the girls thought we were drowned; at all
events, they withdrew in consternation, leaving the hose so that it
still belched its unwelcome waters into the very centre of our drenched
apartment.

Ri