Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (149 page)

surcease,
decease,
death,
cremation"—that
was
it—not
a
very
irregular
verb,
after
all:
you
could
tell
each
declension
from
the
one
before pretty
well.
He'd
be
able
to
remember
it
when
called
out
to
say
it in
front
of
the
class.
He
looked
up
at
the
clock
again.
It
was
just going
to
strike
the
hour
but,
instead,
it
remarked
in
a
sharper
tone of
voice,
"Wake
up!"

Mr.
Bradegar
once
more
sprang
to
attention
to
find
as
before
that he
was
horizontal,
sheet-swathed,
pillow-sunk—and
had
once
more missed
the
tide.
He
had
been
called,
but
by
the
time
he'd
hurried
up to
the
doors
of
his
body,
the
summoner,
like
a
"ring-and-run"
street urchin,
had
made
off.
But
had
it?
Mr.
Bradegar's
mood,
which
had nearly
risen
to
the
vigorous
daylight
state
of
irritated
disappointment, suddenly
sank,
sank
to
apprehension.
Perhaps
he
wasn't
going
to
be disappointed
this
time?
Perhaps,
this
time,
the
ringer
hadn't
run?

He
was
now
fully
awake
and
realized
how
keenly
sorry
he
was
that he
wasn't
going
to
be
disappointed.
"This
is
the
third
time
I've
been roused,"
he
remarked
to
himself.
There
was
a
gentle
whirring,
and, as
if
in
answer
to
his
half-question,
the
clock
announced
that
it
was Three.
But,
whether
it
was
because
he
was
more
awake
this
time,
the tone
of
voice
in
which
his
timepiece
made
this,
its
third,
summons to
a
new
day,
struck
Mr.
Bradegar
as
being
a
trifle
more
peremptory, less
deferential
than
the
discreet
summons
of
an
hour
ago.
Then
it had
almost
seemed
to
say
by
its
tone,
"Excuse
me,
sir,
but
should you
be
wishing
to
know
the
precise
hour,
I
beg
to
inform
you
that
it is
just
two
a.m
."
Now
its
stroke
rather
suggested,
"Take
it
or
leave
it," with
perhaps
even
a
hint
of,
"But
if
you
do
slip
off
again
I'm
not responsible
if
you
never
wake
up
in
time."

But
what
was
Mr.
Bradegar
meant
to
do?
He
was
roused,
but
for what?
The
only
thing
was
to
set
oneself
to
listen.
Putting
on
the
light wouldn't
throw
any
on
what
might
be
present
but
which
always seemed
just
to
have
done
what
it
was
up
to
and
escaped
into
the
past. "If
I
did
put
on
the
light,"
he
reflected,
"I'd
only
have
the
unpleasant feeling
that
whatever
it
is
that's
nibbling
at
me
had
been
looking right
at
me
the
moment
before
I
pressed
the
switch."
That
thought was
so
unpleasantly
convincing
that
Mr.
Bradegar,
who
had
been vainly
peering
over
the
sheet's
fold
into
the
dark,
involuntarily
shut his
eyes—only
for
a
moment,
he
felt
sure.
But
the
clock
had
another opinion.
Mr.
Bradegar
was
all
ears
as,
having
started
striking,
as
if worked
up
to
a
kind
of
angry
protest,
the
clock
went
on
making
its points
like
a
lawyer
pressing
a
conviction:
"One,
Two,
Three,
Four." "What?"
thought
Mr.
Bradegar.
"Five,
Six."
Six!
And
there
was
no doubt
that
the
clock's
tone
was
as
harshly
startling
as
the
information it
imparted.