When the Sleeper Wakes

recedented length of time, and then he passed slowly to the flaccid state, to a

were discontinued. For a great space he lay in that strange condition, inert and still neither dead nor living but, as it were, suspended, hanging midway between nothingness and existence. His was a darkness unbroken by a

ember it all as though it happened yesterday--cl

e that had been pink and white was buff and ruddy. He had a pointed beard shot with grey. He talked to an elderly man who wore a summer suit of drill (the summer of that year was unusually hot). Thi

rd, lean limbs and lank nails, and about it was a case of thin glass. This glass seemed to mark off the sleeper from the real

surprise even now when I think of his white eyes. They were white

n him since that ti

ss nowadays is too serious a thing for much holida

ly," said Warming, "

k and white, very soon--at least for a mediocre man, and I jumped on

he solicitor, "though I wa

, I was down at Boscastle with a box of water-colours and a noble, old-fashioned ambition. I didn't expect that some day my pigments would

ty of the luck. "I just missed se

t was close on the Jubilee, Victoria's Jubilee, because I remember the

, it was," said Warm

wouldn't take him in, wouldn't let him stay--he looked so queer when he was rigid. We had to carry him in a chair up to the hotel. And the Boscast

ptic rigour at f

opped. I never saw such stiffness. Of course this"--he indicated the prostrate figure by a mov

ith

ding to all accounts. The things he did. Even now it makes me feel all--ugh! M

tion c

ing yellow candles, and all the shadows were shivering, and the little doctor nervous and put

us

nge state,"

complete absence

, no beating of the heart--not a flutter. _That_ doesn't make me feel as if there was a man present. In a sense it's more dead tha

g, with a flash of pa

sted for as much as a year before--but at the end of that time it had ever been waking or a death; sometimes first one and then the other. Isbister noted the marks the ph

d a family, my eldest lad--I hadn't begun to think of sons then--is an American citizen, and looking forward to leaving Harvard. There's

ith him when I was still only a lad. And he looks a young man

een the War,"

ginning

ese Mar

after a pause, "that he had som

He coughed primly. "As it

"No doubt--his keep here is not expensive--

ery much better off--if he

times thought that, speaking commercially, of course, this sleep may be a very good thing for him. Th

ated as much," said Warming. "He w

es

se that occasionally a certain friction--. But even if that was the case, there is a doubt whether he will ever wake. This sleep exhau

There's been a lot of change these twen

n a lot of change certainly. And, among othe

feigned a belated surprise. "

nkers--you remember you wired

m the cheque book in his

on is not difficu

y go on for years yet," he said, and had a moment of hesitation. "We have to consider t

antly before my mind. We happen to be--as a matter of fact, there are no very

f fact, it's a case for a public trust

f he really is going on living--as the doctors, some of them, think. As a matter of fa

--the British Museum Trustees, or the Royal College of Physicia

is to induce t

pe, I s

rtl

tainly," said Isbister. "And compoun

old supplies are running short there i

ster with a grimace. "But i

he w

notice the pinched-ill look of his nose,

for a space. "I doubt if he

"what it was brought this on. He told me somet

l Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the advanced school. Energetic--flighty--undisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this for him. I remember the pamphlet he wrote--a curious production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies.

," said Isbister, "just to hea

d I," with an old man's sudden turn to se

figure. "He will never wake," he said at