Taking them off, he hung them on the banisters, and, with a passing thought of Lady Godiva, closed the kitchen door and advanced again towards the grate, still grasping the poker in his hand. Then he set himself to grapple with reality in earnest. The ashes crashed together, dust rose in columns, iron rang on iron, as in war's smithy. But little by little the victory was achieved, and lines of paper, wood, and coal gave promise of brighter things. He wiped his sweating brow, tingeing it with a still deeper black, and, catching sight of himself in a servant's looking-glass over the mantelpiece, he said, "There is no doubt man was intended by nature to be a coloured race."
But while he was thinking what wisdom the Vestal Virgins showed in never letting their fire go out, another crash came at the door, followed by the war-whoop of a scalp-hunter. "I seem to recognise that noise," he thought, "but I can't possibly open the door in this condition."
Creeping down the passage, he said "Who's there?" through the letter-box.
"Would there be any objection to your depositing the milk upon the doorstep?" asked Mr. Clarkson.
"Righto!" came the answer, and steps retreated with a clang of pails.
"Why do the common people love to add 'o' to their words?" Mr. Clarkson reflected. "Is it that they unconsciously appreciate 'o' as the most beautiful of vowel sounds? But I wonder whether I ought to have blacked that range before I lighted the fire? The ironwork certainly looks rather pre-Dreadnought! What I require most just now is a hot bath, and I'd soon have one if I only knew which of these little slides to pull out. But if I pulled out the wrong one, there might be an explosion, and then what would become of the _History of the Masque?_"
So he put on a kettle, and waited uneasily for it to sing as a kettle should. "Now I'll shave," he said; "and when I am less like that too conscientious Othello, I'll go out and buy something for breakfast."
The bath was distinctly cool, but when he got out there was a satisfaction in the water's hue, and, though chilled to the bone, he carried his pyjamas upstairs with a feeling of something accomplished. On entering his bedroom, he was confronted by his disordered pillow, and a bed like a map of Switzerland in high relief. "Courage!" he cried, "I will make it at once. The secret of labour-saving is organisation."