Another guest to set
an example of early bed-going was Waldo Plubley, who conducted his life
on a minutely regulated system of time-tables and hygienic routine. Waldo
was a plump, indolent young man of seven-and-twenty, whose mother had
early in his life decided for him that he was unusually delicate, and by
dint of much coddling and home-keeping had succeeded in making him
physically soft and mentally peevish. Nine hours' unbroken sleep,
preceded by elaborate breathing exercises and other hygienic ritual, was
among the indispensable regulations which Waldo imposed on himself, and
there were innumerable small observances which he exacted from those who
were in any way obliged to minister to his requirements; a special teapot
for the decoction of his early tea was always solemnly handed over to the
bedroom staff of any house in which he happened to be staying. No one
had ever quite mastered the mechanism of this precious vessel, but Bertie
van Tahn was responsible for the legend that its spout had to be kept
facing north during the process of infusion.
On this particular night the irreducible nine hours were severely
mutilated by the sudden and by no means noiseless incursion of a pyjama-
clad figure into Waldo's room at an hour midway between midnight and
dawn.
"What is the matter? What are you looking for?" asked the awakened and
astonished Waldo, slowly recognising Van Tahn, who appeared to be
searching hastily for something he had lost.
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