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me for ever.'
He looked uneasily about the room, and--gazed with lacklustre eyes at
the chair in which Mr Dickson had installed himself. The end of a cigar
lay near on the fender.
'No,' he thought, 'I don't believe that was a dream; but God knows
my mind is failing rapidly. I seem to be hungry, for instance; it's
probably another hallucination. Still I might try. I shall have one more
good meal; I shall go to the Cafe Royal, and may possibly be removed
from there direct to the asylum.'
He wondered with morbid interest, as he descended the stairs, how he
would first betray his terrible condition--would he attack a waiter? or
eat glass?--and when he had mounted into a cab, he bade the man drive to
Nichol's, with a lurking fear that there was no such place.
The flaring, gassy entrance of the cafe speedily set his mind at rest;
he was cheered besides to recognize his favourite waiter; his orders
appeared to be coherent; the dinner, when it came, was quite a sensible
meal, and he ate it with enjoyment. 'Upon my word,' he reflected, 'I
am about tempted to indulge a hope. Have I been hasty? Have I done what
Robert Skill would have done?' Robert Skill (I need scarcely mention)
was the name of the principal character in Who Put Back the Clock? It
had occurred to the author as a brilliant and probable invention; to
readers of a critical turn, Robert appeared scarce upon a level with his
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