_Bunter_: Not very convenient for the Halls, of course.
_Cummings_: I believe you. It’s all right for you, here in Piccadilly, right on the spot as you might say. And I daresay your governor’s often out all night, eh?
_Cummings_: And I daresay you take the opportunity to slip off yourself every so often, eh?
_Bunter_: Well, what do _you_ think, Mr. Cummings?
_Cummings_: That’s it; there you are! But what’s a man to do with a nagging fool of a wife and a blasted scientific doctor for a governor, as sits up all night cutting up dead bodies and experimenting with frogs?
_Cummings_: Not often. And always back before twelve. And the way he goes on if he rings the bell and you ain’t there. I give you _my_ word, Mr. Bunter.
_Cummings_: No-o-o—but looking through you, nasty-like, as if you was on that operating table of his and he was going to cut you up. Nothing a man could rightly complain of, you understand, Mr. Bunter, just nasty looks. Not but what I will say he’s very correct. Apologizes if he’s been inconsiderate. But what’s the good of that when he’s been and gone and lost you your night’s rest?
_Bunter_: How does he do that? Keeps you up late, you mean?
_Cummings_: Not him; far from it. House locked up and household to bed at half-past ten. That’s his little rule. Not but what I’m glad enough to go as a rule, it’s that dreary. Still, when I _do_ go to bed I like to go to sleep.
_Bunter_: What does he do? Walk about the house?
_Cummings_: Doesn’t he? All night. And in and out of the private door to the hospital.
_Bunter_: You don’t mean to say, Mr. Cummings, a great specialist like Sir Julian Freke does night work at the hospital?
_Cummings_: No, no; he does his own work—research work, as you may say. Cuts people up. They say he’s very clever. Could take you or me to pieces like a clock, Mr. Bunter, and put us together again.
_Bunter_: Do you sleep in the basement, then, to hear him so plain?
_Cummings_: No; our bedroom’s at the top. But, Lord! what’s that? He’ll bang the door so you can hear him all over the house.
_Bunter_: Ah, many’s the time I’ve had to speak to Lord Peter about that. And talking all night. And baths.
_Cummings_: Baths? You may well say that, Mr. Bunter. Baths? Me and my wife sleep next to the cistern-room. Noise fit to wake the dead. All hours. When d’you think he chose to have a bath, no later than last Monday night, Mr. Bunter?