ch Mr. Dickson had installed himself. The end of a cigar lay
near on the fender.

"No," he thought, "I don't believe that was a dream; but God knows my
mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be hungry, for instance; it's
probably another hallucination. Still I might try. I shall have one
more good meal; I shall go to the Cafe Royal, and may possibly be
removed from there direct to the asylum."

He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended the stairs, how he
would first betray his terrible condition--would he attack a waiter? or
eat glass?--and when he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man drive to
Nichol's, with a lurking fear that there was no such place.

The flaring, gassy entrance of the cafe speedily set his mind at rest;
he was cheered besides to recognise his favourite waiter; his orders
appeared to be coherent; the dinner, when it came, was quite a sensible
meal, and he ate it with enjoyment. "Upon my word," he reflected, "I am
about tempted to indulge a hope. Have I been hasty? Have I done what
Robert Skill would have done?" Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention)
was the name of the principal character in "Who Put Back the Clock?" It
had occurred to the author as a brilliant and probable invention; to
readers of a critical turn, Robert appeared scarce upon a level with his
surname; but it is the difficulty of the police romance, that the reader
is always a man of such vastly greater ingenuity than the writer. In the
eyes of his creator, however, Robert Skill was a word to conjure with;
the thought braced and spurred him; what that brilliant creature would
have done Gideon would do also. This frame of mind is not uncommon; the
distressed general, the baited divine, the hesitating author, decide
severally to do what Napoleon, what St. Paul, what Shakespeare would
have done; and there remains only the minor question, What is that? In
Gideon's case one thing was clear: Skill was a man of singular decision,
he would have taken some step (whatever it was) at once; and the only
step that Gideon could think of was to return to his chambers.

This being achieved, all further inspiration failed him, and he stood
pitifully staring at the instrument of his confusion. To touch the keys
again was more than he durst venture on; whether they had maintained
their former silence, or responded with the tones of the last trump, it
would have equally dethroned his resolution. "It may be a practical
jest," he reflected, "thoug