At the seventeenth time Mr
Cowlishaw trembled to hear a renewal of the bump-bump-bump. It was the
oval-wheeled car, which had been to Longshaw and back. He recognized it
as an old friend. He wondered whether he must expect it to pass a third
time. However, it did not pass a third time. After several clocks in and
out of the hotel had more or less agreed on the fact that it was one
o'clock, there was a surcease of earthquakes. Mr Cowlishaw dared not
hope that earthquakes were over. He waited in strained attention during
quite half an hour, expectant of the next earthquake. But it did not
come. Earthquakes were, indeed, done with till the morrow.
It was about two o'clock when his nerves were sufficiently
tranquillized to enable him to envisage the possibility of going to
sleep. And he was just slipping, gliding, floating off when he was
brought back to realities by a terrific explosion of laughter at the
head of the stairs outside his bedroom door. The building rang like the
inside of a piano when you strike a wire directly. The explosion was
followed by low rumblings of laughter and then by a series of jolly,
hearty "Good-nights.
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