easily for it to sing as a kettle
should. "Now I'll shave," he said; "and when I am less like that too
conscientious Othello, I'll go out and buy something for breakfast."

The bath was distinctly cool, but when he got out there was a
satisfaction in the water's hue, and, though chilled to the bone, he
carried his pyjamas upstairs with a feeling of something accomplished.
On entering his bedroom, he was confronted by his disordered pillow, and
a bed like a map of Switzerland in high relief. "Courage!" he cried, "I
will make it at once. The secret of labour-saving is organisation."

So, with a certain asperity, he dragged off the clothes, and flung the
mattress over, while the bedstead rolled about under the unaccustomed
violence. "Rightly does the Scot talk about sorting a bed!" he thought,
as he wrenched the blankets asunder, and stood wondering whether the
black border should be tucked in at the sides or the feet. At last he
pulled the counterpane fairly smooth, but in an evil moment, looking
under the bed, he perceived large quantities of fluffy and coagulated
dust.

"I know what that is," he said. "That's called flue, and it must be
removed. Swift advised the chambermaid, if she was in haste, to sweep
the dust into a corner of the room, but leave her brush upon it, that it
might not be seen, for that would disgrace her. Well, there is no one to
see me, so I must do it as I can."

He crawled under the bed, and gathering the flue together in his two
hands, began throwing it out of the window. "Pity it isn't nesting
season for the birds," he said, as he watched it float away. But this
process was too slow; so taking his towel, he dusted the drawers, the
washing-stand, and the greater part of the floor, shaking the towel out
of the window, until, in his eagerness, he dropped it into the back
garden, and it lay extended upon the wash-house roof.

Tranquillity had now vanished, and solitude was losing some of its
charm. It was quite time he started for the office, but he had not begun
to dress, and, except for the kettle, which he could hear boiling over
downstairs, there was not a gleam of breakfast. After washing again, he
put on his clothes hurriedly, and determined to postpone the remainder
of his physical exercise till his return in the evening.

Running downstairs, he saw his dirty boots staring him in the face. "Is
there any peace in ever climbing up the climbing wave?" he quoted, with
a sinking heart. There