pretends it's dry and comfortable and cosy, and why people never leave
it except to go away for holidays that cannot possibly be avoided."

"I beg your pardon, sir," began an awful voice behind the chair.

"And why to this day," he continued as though he had not heard, "a
squirrel always curls its tail above its back, why a rabbit wears a
stump like a pen wiper, and why a mouse lives sometimes in a house and
sometimes in a field, and--"

_"I beg your pardon, sir,"_ clanged the slow, awful voice in a tone
that was meant to be heard distinctly, "but it's long gone 'arf-past
six, and--"

"Time for bed," added the figure with a sound that was like the
falling of an executioner's axe. And, as if to emphasise the arrival
of the remorseless moment, the clock just then struck loudly on the
mantelpiece--seven times.

But for several minutes no one stirred. Hope, even at such moments,
was stronger than machinery of clocks and nurses. There was a general
belief that somehow or other the moment that they dreaded, the moment
that was always coming to block their happiness, could be evaded and
shoved aside. Nothing mechanical like that was wholly true. Daddy had
often used queer phrases that hinted at it: "Some day--A day is
coming--A day will come"; and so forth. Their belief in a special Day
when no one would say "Time" haunted them already. Yet, evidently this
evening was not the momentous occasion; for when Tim mentioned that
the clock was fast, the figure behind the chair replied that she was
half an hour overdue already, and her tone was like Thompson's when he