"Ah!" Isbister thought, hesitated and spoke:
"No doubt -- his keep here is not expensive -- no
doubt it will have improved -- accumulated?"

"It has. He will wake up very much better off --
if he wakes -- than when he slept."

"As a business man," said Isbister, "that thought
has naturally been in my mind. I have, indeed,
sometimes thought that, speaking commercially, of course,
this sleep may be a very good thing for him. That
he knows what he is about, so to speak, in being
insensible so long. If he had lived straight on --"

"I doubt if he would have premeditated as much,"
said Warming. "He was not a far-sighted man. In
fact --"

"Yes?"

"We differed on that point. I stood to him somewhat
in the relation of a guardian. You have probably
seen enough of affairs to recognise that
occasionally a certain friction --. But even if that was the
case, there is a doubt whether he will ever wake. This
sleep exhausts slowly, but it exhausts. Apparently
he is sliding slowly, very slowly and tediously, down
a long slope, if you can understand me?"

"It will be a pity to lose his surprise. There's been