They told him I was already there, but he wouldn't believe it until he had come into my private den and with his own eyes had seen me. "Well, I'm jiggered!" said he. "It seems to have made less impression on you than it did on us.

My missus and the little un wouldn't let me go to bed till after two. They sat on and on, questioning me and discussing." I laughed-partly because I knew that Joe, like most men, was as full of gossip and as eager for it as a convalescent old maid, and that, whoever might have been the first at his house to make the break for bed, he was the last to leave off talking.

But the chief reason for my laugh was that, just before he came in on me, I was almost pinching myself to see whether I was dreaming it all, and he had made me feel how vividly true it was. "Why don't you ease down, Blacklock?" he went on. "Everything's smooth.