's a queer
looking face. When they used to let anyone go to see him, I've got
tickets and been. The image of the real one, as the photographs show
him, this substitute used to be. Yellow. But he'll get fed up. It's a
queer world. Think of the luck of it. The luck of it. I expect he'll be
sent to Capri. It's the best fun for a greener."

His cough overtook him again. Then he began mumbling enviously of
pleasures and strange delights. "The luck of it, the luck of it! All my
life I've been in London, hoping to get my chance."

"But you don't know that the Sleeper died," said Graham, suddenly.

The old man made him repeat his words.

"Men don't live beyond ten dozen. It's not in the order of things," said
the old man. "I'm not a fool. Fools may believe it, but not me."

Graham became angry with the old man's assurance. "Whether you are a
fool or not," he said, "it happens you are wrong about the Sleeper."

"Eh?"

"You are wrong about the Sleeper. I haven't told you before, but I will
tell you now. You are wrong about the Sleeper."

"How do you know? I thought you didn't know anything--not even about
Pleasure Cities."

Graham paused.

"You don't know," said the old man. "How are you to know? It's very few
men--"

"I _am_ the Sleeper."

He had to repeat it.

There was a brief pause. "There's a silly thing to say, sir, if you'll
excuse me. It might get you into trouble in a time like this," said the
old man. Graham, slightly dashed, repeated his assertion.

"I was saying I was the Sleeper. That years and years ago I did, indeed,
fall asleep, in a little stonebuilt village, in the days when there were
hedgerows, and villages, and inns, and all the countryside cut up into
little pieces, little fields. Have you never heard of those days? And it
is I--I who speak to you--who awakened again these four days since."

"Four days since!--the Sleeper! But they've got the Sleeper. They have
him and they won't let him go. Nonsense! You've been talking sensibly
enough up to now. I can see it as though I was there. There will be
Lincoln like a keeper just behind him; they won't let him go about
alone. Trust them. You're a queer fellow. One of these fun pokers. I see
now why you have been clipping your words so oddly, but--"

He stopped abruptly, and Graham could see his gesture.

"As if Ostrog would let the Sleeper run about alone! No, you're telling
that to the wrong man altogether. Eh! as if I should believe. What's