Never
had I been so sorry when my performance at the theatre was over, and
the lights of my hotel once again hove in sight. I entered my bedroom
in fear and trembling, and was so apprehensive lest I should be again
compelled to undergo the sensations of hanging, that I decided to keep
a light burning all night, and, for that reason, had bought half a
pound of wax candles. At last I grew so sleepy that I could keep awake
no longer, and, placing the candlestick on a chair by the bed, I
scrambled in between the sheets. Without as much as a sip of spirits,
I slept like a top. When I awoke the room was in pitch darkness. A
curious smell at once attracted my notice. I thought, at first, it
might be but the passing illusion of a dream. But no--I sniffed
again--it was there--there, close to me--under my very nose--the
strong, pungent odour of drugs; but not being a professor of smells,
nor even a humble student of physics, I was consequently unable to
diagnose it, and could only arrive at the general conclusion that it
was a smell that brought with it very vivid recollections of a
chemist's shop and of my old school laboratory. Wondering whence it
originated, I thrust my face forward with the intention of trying to
locate it, when, to my horror, my lips touched against something cold
and flabby. In an agony of fear I reeled away from it, and, the bed
being narrow, I slipped over the edge and bumped on to the floor.
"Now I think it is quite possible that up to this point you may have
attributed my unhappy experience to nothing more nor less than a bad
dream, but your dream theory can no longer hold good, for, on coming
in such sudden contact with the floor, I gave my funny-bone a knock,
which, I can assure you, made me thoroughly awake, and the first thing
I noticed on recovering my scattered senses--was the smell.
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