CHAPTER XVII
THE REHEARSAL
These were the things that were in my mind the whole night through, and what sleep I got did not come to me until the sun was streaming through the windows and the birds in the park were singing fit to split your ears. I had made up my mind then that the business was beyond me, and that I could only watch and wait and make use of what I had seen when the opportunity came. As for telling my master, the idea was farther from my mind than ever. When I went to his room at eight o'clock, I did my best to look like a man who is thinking of nothing but his breakfast, and who will think of nothing after that but his dinner.
"Good-morning, sir," said I. "Are you ready for me now?"
"The devil a bit!" said he, sitting up in bed and looking very pale; "’tis like a boiled owl I feel."
"You made a night of it, then?" said I.
"Indeed and we did, and I lost fifteen hundred."
"You did, sir?"
"’Tis truth I speak. Fifteen hundred last night and three hundred the night before!"
