My friend took possession of the bed at my request, for I told him I was quite independent of the luxury, having provided myself before I left England with an excellent hammock made of twine.  I had learned to sleep in these contrivances during my naval volunteer days, but the order to “sling hammocks” would not have been easy to obey under the present circumstances.  I was forced to put my screws in the floor and hang my net over some heavy furniture; but when I got in, the table that I had chiefly depended upon gave way with a crash, and I found myself on the floor.  My friend laughed heartily; he had never seen a hammock before, and, spite of my representations, I do not think he was properly impressed by the great utility of the invention.  Of course I was not to be foiled, so I cast about for another method of “fixing.”  I tried several dodges, but nothing answered exactly; something always gave way after a few minutes of repose—­either I came down with a bump, or some abominable, ramshackle chest of drawers got over-turned.

Now my friend was very tired and sleepy, and desired nothing so much as a little repose.  My experiments ceased to interest him, and the noise caused by my repeated misfortunes irritated him.  A large-minded man would have admired my tenacity of purpose, but he did not.  One can never tell what people are till we travel with them.  In a tone of mingled solicitude and irritation he offered to vacate his bed in my favour.  He declared he would willingly lie on the hard floor, or indeed, if I would only consent to take his place, he would sit bolt upright in a chair through the livelong night.

“I will do anything,” he added piteously, “if you will only be quiet and not try to hang yourself any more in that horrible netting.”

I would not hear of my friend leaving his bed, and after one or two more mischances self and hammock were suspended for the night at an angle a trifle too low for the head.  Except for the honour and glory of the thing, perhaps I might have slept as well on the floor; but one does not carry a patent contrivance all across Europe to be balked of its use after all.

My friend woke me once during the night by shaking me roughly.  He said I had nightmare, and made “such a devil of a row that he could not sleep.”  I have some dreamy recollection of finding myself in a London drawing-room in the inexpressibly scanty garments of a Rusniack, and when I turned to leave in all decent haste I found the way barred by an insolent fellow with the head of a buffalo bull.  When I awoke in the early morning I found my friend already dressed and rather sulky.  He observed that he had never met a man so addicted to nightmare as myself, adding, that another time if I must sleep in my hammock, it would be better to see that the head was higher than the feet.

“It does not make any difference to me,” I replied cheerfully, “I am as fresh as a lark.”