Its winding was a laborious process,
prodigiously noisy. Once finished, Nogam shut the back with a loud click,
and reverently deposited the watch on the marble slab of the black walnut
bureau.
Then he hung coat and waistcoat over the back of a chair which stood
between the foot of his bed and the door. Sheer chance may have decreed
selection of this chair for the purpose on Nogam's first night in the room;
whether or no, it was not in character that, having established this
precedent, Nogam should depart from it. And in any event, the coat-draped
chair effectually eclipsed a possible keyhole view of the room.
Notwithstanding, Nogam pursued his bedtime rites with precisely the same
deliberation and absence of perceptible self-consciousness as before. One
never knew: there might be other peepholes in the walls.
His trousers, neatly folded, he laid out on the seat of the chair. Then he
pulled off square-toed boots with elastic inserts in their uppers, put on a
pair of worn slippers, carried the boots to the door and set them outside,
closed the door, and turned the key in its lock.
If aware that, by so doing, he made his privacy just as secure as if he had
fastened the door with a bent hair-pin, he gave evidence of no uneasiness
in the knowledge. A clear conscience is the best of nerve tonics.
Throughout, his features preserved their mild, subdued, dull habit with
which the household was familiar. Nogam off duty was in no way different
from the unthinking creature of habit who performed belowstairs the
prescribed functions of his office.
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