him calling out to me, "All right? Are you all right?" and, once again
invoking the spirit of _Mark Tapley_, I throw all the joviality I
can into my reply as I say, through the wall, "Quite, thanks. Jolly!
Good-night!" But my reply is wasted on him; he has turned a deaf ear
to me, the other being on the pillow, and gives no sign. If he is
asleep, the suddenness of the collapse is almost alarming. Once again
I address him. No answer. I continue my unpacking. All my portmanteau
arrangements seem to have become unaccountably complicated. I pause
and look round. Cheerless. The room is bare and lofty, the bed is
small, the window is large, and the one solitary _bougie_ sheds
a gloom around which makes unpacking a difficulty. I pull up the
blind. A lovely moonlight night. In front of me, as if it had had the
politeness to put itself out of the way to walk up here, and pay me a
visit, stands the Cathedral, that is--some of it; but what I can see
of it, _au clair de la lune_, fascinates me. It is company, it is
friendly. But it is chilly all the same, and the sooner I close the
window and retire the better. Usual difficulty, of course, in closing
French window. After a violent struggle, it is done. The bed looks
chilly, and I feel sure that that stuffed, pillow-like thing, which is
to do duty for blanket and coverlet, can't be warm enough.

Hark! a gentle snore. A very gentle one. It is the first time I ever
knew a snore exercise a soothing effect on the listener. This is
decidedly soporific. It is an invitation to sleep. I accept. The
Cathedral clock sounds a _carillon_. It plays half a tune, too, as if
this was all it had learnt up to the present, or perhaps to intimate
that there is more where that comes from, only I must wait for
to-morrow, and be contented with this instalment. I am. Half a tune is
better than no tune at all, or _vice versâ_: it doesn't matter. When
the tune breaks off I murmur to myself, "To be continued in our next;"