He glanced about the room and beckoned us with his finger.
"I have lately had my eye upon the gas man," he said in a low tone. He closed one eye impressively.
"Ah!" said Billings, his mouth dropping open wide.
"The individual who comes at intervals to take the quarters from the slot meter. H'm, fine subject, gentlemen!"
The professor clasped his fingers tightly and rubbed his thumbs one over the other. He brightened visibly.
"The party has to go down upon his knees and stoop behind the end of the tub in the bath-room," he continued. "It was my thought that while in that advantageous position the sudden, quick application of a Turkish bath towel saturated in ether would--Eh? Do you follow me?"
"Devilish clever, you know," I said. I had already selected this for reply for this time.
Billings failed to come up. He just stared hard, rolled his eyes and ran his finger around under his collar.
The professor, in the act of taking another pinch from my shirt front, paused with a little jerk. Then his great head shot forward in front of his rigid neck--so suddenly, by Jove, that I reached out to try to catch it, don't you know. He made just two strides to the table, ten feet away, and pounced upon the pajamas with obviously trembling hands.
And behind his back Billings relapsed into an arm-chair and fanned himself with a magazine.
His head dropped back, and upon his fat face was a what-you-call-it smile of peace. He closed his eyes for an instant.
"Suffering Thomas cats! At last!" I heard him murmur.
The professor fumblingly sought through his pockets, and producing a pair of spectacles with phenomenally large lenses, adjusted them shakily.
"Impossible! And yet, it is, it is!" he muttered. "I would know the weave among a thousand. It is hers undoubtedly, undoubtedly--the lost silk of Si-Ling-Chi! How comes it here?"
He glared around rather wildly at each of us in turn. Without waiting for a reply, he whisked back to the pajamas, and fishing out a thick magnifying lens, scrutinized the garments closely. It seemed that he would certainly nod his big head off its jolly hinge; and his quick side glances at Billings and myself, together with his growling and muttering, just reminded me of a dog with a bone, by Jove!