Part 69

“This gentleman says I’m not to come in,” said I.

“Oh, what nonsense! Now, you really mustn’t be silly, Mr. Rhadamanthus--or I shall have to--Mr. Carter, you weren’t there, were you?”

“I was--and a more interesting piece of scandal it has seldom been--”

“Hush! I didn’t do anything. Now, you know I didn’t, Mr. Carter!”

“No,” said I, “you didn’t. But Rhadamanthus, taking you unawares--”

“Oh, be off with you--both of you!” cried Rhadamanthus.

“That’s sensible,” said Dolly. “Because you know, there really isn’t any harm in poor Mr. Carter.”

Rhadamanthus vanished. Dolly and I went inside.

“I suppose everything will be very different here,” said Dolly, and I think she sighed.

Whether it were or not I don’t know, for just then I awoke, and found myself saying aloud, in answer to the dream voice and the dream face (which had not gone altogether with the dream).

“Not everything”--a speech that, I agree, I ought not to have made, even though it were only in a dream.