But there was no reason
why Delaware should pay any respect to this, or hesitate to remove
the bar securing one-half of the door, without which the lock
retained no hold.
Although Tom had indeed deserted his post, the organist was mistaken
as to the cause and mode of his desertion: oppressed like every one
else with the sultriness of the night, he had fallen fast asleep,
leaning against the organ. The thunder only waked him sufficiently
to render him capable of slipping from the stool on which he had
lazily seated himself as he worked the lever of the bellows, and
stretching himself at full length upon the floor; while the coolness
that by degrees filled the air as the rain kept pouring, made his
sleep sweeter and deeper. He lay and snored till midnight.
A bell rang in the marquis's chamber.
It was one of his lordship's smaller economic maxims that in every
house, and the larger the house the more necessary its observance,
the master thereof should have his private rooms as far apart from
each other as might, with due respect to general fitness, be
arranged for, in order that, to use his own figure, he might spread
his skirts the wider over the place, and chiefly the part occupied
by his own family and immediate attendants--thereby to give himself,
without paying more attention to such matters than he could afford,
a better chance of coming upon the trace of anything that happened
to be going amiss.
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