“This is a rotten pub,” he thought. “A moribund bulb, blinds not drawn, bed not pulled down! I’ll tell that worm what I think of his establishment in the morning!” He went to hang up his coat on one of those pegs when he suddenly found himself staring uncertainly at them. His subconscious mind had uttered a protest. Then he remembered. “That’s rather funny,” he thought. “I could have sworn that one of those pegs was missing, and that one of those panels had been renewed.” Yet they were all there now, and the panels were identical. He peered at them closely; it was a quite unimportant and yet irritating little puzzle. The room was stuffy. He went to the window and opened it. He must be getting old and unobservant. He’d never noticed that tree before--what was it?--a yew, and a very fine one. How could he have failed to see it? In how unreal, unearthly a way the moon painted the world sometimes! This view from the window, for example--how uncertain in a sense, unfamiliar, as if it were a reflection from a mind not his own; certain pictures of Cézanne gave one that tingling, groping “let me get back to reality” feeling. Reality! What was it? And what was that? That shifty little noise. Had he heard it or just imagined it? He listened intently. No, there was nothing. An idea for an article! He began to undress, whistling a vague little tune, and pretending to concentrate on pleasant, commonplace things. He pretended to do so because he refused to confess that he had a rather poisonous sensation of being watched and waited for. When he was examining those pegs he had had to exercise considerable self-control so as not to turn round quickly to see who was looking at them too, just over his shoulder. But he _had_ looked round sharply when he thought he’d heard that curious little noise. Well, he shouldn’t have done. That way panic lay. Panic! What on earth was there to panic about?