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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 11 - The Old Man Who Knew Everything · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of The Sleeper Awakes recording by Mark Nelson.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven. The Old Man who Knew Everything. He was
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  Speaker 1: startled by a cough close at hand. He turned sharply
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  Speaker 1: and peering saw a small, hunched up figure sitting a
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  Speaker 1: couple of yards off in the shadow of the enclosure.
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  Speaker 1: Have you any news, asked the high pitched, wheezy voice
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  Speaker 1: of a very old man. Graham hesitated none. He said,
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  Speaker 1: I stay here till the lights come again, said the
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  Speaker 1: old man. These blue scoundrels are everywhere, everywhere. Graham's answer
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  Speaker 1: was inarticulate assent. He tried to see the old man,
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  Speaker 1: but the darkness hid his face. He wanted very much
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  Speaker 1: to respond to talk, but he did not know how
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  Speaker 1: to begin. Dark and damnable, said the old man. Suddenly
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  Speaker 1: dark and damnable turned out of my room. Among all
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  Speaker 1: these dangers. That's hard, ventured Graham. That's hard on you. Darkness.
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  Speaker 1: An old man lost in darkness, and all the world
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  Speaker 1: gone mad, war and fighting, the police beaten and rogues abroad.
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  Speaker 1: Why don't they bring some negroes to protect us? No
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  Speaker 1: more dark passages for me. I fell over a dead man.
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  Speaker 1: You're safer with company, said the old man. If it's
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  Speaker 1: company of the right sort, and peered frankly. He rose
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  Speaker 1: suddenly and came towards Graham. Apparently the scrutiny was satisfactory.
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  Speaker 1: The old man sat down, as if relieved to be
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  Speaker 1: no longer alone. Hey, he said, but this is a
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  Speaker 1: terrible time, war and fighting, and the dead lying there men,
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  Speaker 1: strong men dying in the dark. Sons. I have three sons.
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  Speaker 1: God knows where they are to night. The voice ceased,
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  Speaker 1: then repeated, quavering, God knows where they are to night.
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  Speaker 1: Graham stood revolving a question that should not betray his ignorance. Again,
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  Speaker 1: the old man's voice ended the pause. This ostrog will win,
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  Speaker 1: he said, He will win. And what the world will
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  Speaker 1: be like under him, no one can tell. My sons
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  Speaker 1: are under the wind vanes, all three. One of my
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  Speaker 1: daughters in law was his mistress for a while. He
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  Speaker 1: is mistress. We are not common people, though they set
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  Speaker 1: me to wander to night and take my chance. I
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  Speaker 1: knew what was going on before most people, but this darkness,
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  Speaker 1: and to fall over a dead body. Suddenly in the dark,
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  Speaker 1: his wheezing breathing could be heard. Ostrog, said Graham, the
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  Speaker 1: greatest boss the world has ever seen, said the voice.
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  Speaker 1: Graham ransacked his mind. The council has few friends among
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  Speaker 1: the people. He hazarded, few friends, and poor ones at that.
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  Speaker 1: They've had their time. Eh, they should have kept to
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  Speaker 1: the clever ones. But twice they held election and Ostrog.
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  Speaker 1: And now it has burst out and nothing can stay it.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing can stay it. Twice they rejected Ostrog. Ostrog the boss.
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  Speaker 1: I heard of his rages at the time, he was terrible.
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  Speaker 1: Heaven saved them, for nothing on earth can Now he
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  Speaker 1: has raised the labor companies upon them. No one else
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  Speaker 1: would have dared, all the blue canvas armed and marching.
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  Speaker 1: He will go through with it. He will go through.
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  Speaker 1: He was silent for a little while. This sleeper, he said,
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  Speaker 1: and stopped. Yes, said Graham. Well, the senile voice sank
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  Speaker 1: to a confidential whisper. The dim pale face came close.
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  Speaker 1: The real sleeper, Yes, said Graham, died years ago. What
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  Speaker 1: said Graham, sharply years ago? Died years ago. You don't
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  Speaker 1: say so, said Graham. I do, I do say so.
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  Speaker 1: He died, this sleeper who's woke up. They changed in
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  Speaker 1: the night, a poor, drugged, insensible creature. But I mustn't
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  Speaker 1: tell all I know. I mustn't tell all I know.
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  Speaker 1: For a little while, he muttered inaudibly, his secret was
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  Speaker 1: too much for him. I don't know the ones that
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  Speaker 1: put him to sleep. That was before my time, But
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  Speaker 1: I know the man who injected the stimulants and woke
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  Speaker 1: him again. It was ten to one, wake or kill,
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  Speaker 1: wake or kill Ostrog's way. Graham was so astonished at
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  Speaker 1: these things that he had to interrupt to make the
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  Speaker 1: old man repeat his words to re question vaguely before
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  Speaker 1: he was sure of the meaning and folly of what
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  Speaker 1: he had heard. And his awakening had not been natural?
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  Speaker 1: Was that an old man's senile superstition too? Or had
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  Speaker 1: it any truth in it? Feeling in the dark corners
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  Speaker 1: of his memory, he presently came on something that might
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  Speaker 1: conceivably be an impression of some such stimulating effect. It
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  Speaker 1: dawned upon him that he had happened upon a lucky encounter,
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  Speaker 1: that at last he might learn something of the new age.
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  Speaker 1: The old man wheezed, awhile and spat, and then the
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  Speaker 1: piping reminiscent voice resumed. The first time they rejected him,
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  Speaker 1: I followed it all rejected whom said Graham, the sleeper, sleeper,
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  Speaker 1: no ostrog He was terrible, terrible, and he was promised,
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  Speaker 1: then promised, certainly the next time, fools, they were not
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  Speaker 1: to be more afraid of him. Now, all the cities
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  Speaker 1: his millstone, and such as we dust ground upon it,
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  Speaker 1: dust ground upon it until he set to work. The
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  Speaker 1: workers cut each other's throats and murdered a chinaman or
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  Speaker 1: a labor policeman at times, and left the rest of
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  Speaker 1: us in peace, dead bodies, robbing darkness. Such a thing
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  Speaker 1: hasn't been this gross of years? Ay, But tis ill
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  Speaker 1: on small folks when the great fall out. It's ill.
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  Speaker 1: Did you say there had not been what for a
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  Speaker 1: gross of years, hey, said the old man. The old
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  Speaker 1: man said something about clipping his words, and made him
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  Speaker 1: repeat this a third time. Fighting and slaying, and weapons
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  Speaker 1: in hand, and fools bawling freedom and the like, said
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  Speaker 1: the old man. Not in all my life has there
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  Speaker 1: been that. These are like the old days, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: When the Paris people broke out three gross of years ago.
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  Speaker 1: That's what I mean, hasn't been but it's the world's way.
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  Speaker 1: It had to come back. I know, I know this.
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  Speaker 1: Five years Ostrog has been working, and there has been
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  Speaker 1: trouble and trouble and hunger and threats and high and arms,
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  Speaker 1: blue canvas and murmurs, no one safe, everything sliding and slipping,
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  Speaker 1: and now here we are revolt and fighting and the
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  Speaker 1: council come to its end. You are rather well informed
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  Speaker 1: on these things, said Graham. I know what I hear.
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  Speaker 1: It isn't all Babel machine with me, No, said Graham,
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  Speaker 1: wondering what Babel machine might be. And are you certain
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  Speaker 1: this Ostrog? You are certain Ostrog organized this rebellion and
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  Speaker 1: arranged for the waking of the Sleeper just to assert
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  Speaker 1: himself because he was not elected to the council. Every
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  Speaker 1: one knows that, I should think, said the old man,
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  Speaker 1: except just fools. He meant to be master somehow in
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  Speaker 1: the Council or not. Everyone knows anything, knows that. And
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  Speaker 1: here we are with dead bodies lying in the dark.
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  Speaker 1: Why where have you been if you haven't heard all
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  Speaker 1: about the trouble between Ostrog and the Verneys and what
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  Speaker 1: do you think the troubles are about the sleeper? Hey?
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  Speaker 1: You think the sleeper's real and woke of his own accord? Hey,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a dull man, older than I look, and forgetful,
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  Speaker 1: said Graham. Lots of things that have happened, especially of
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  Speaker 1: late years. If I was the sleeper, to tell you
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  Speaker 1: the truth, I could know less about them, Hey, said
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  Speaker 1: the voice, old are you? You don't sound very old?
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  Speaker 1: But it's not. Everyone keeps his memory to my time
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  Speaker 1: of life, truly. But these notorious things. But you're not
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  Speaker 1: so old as me, not nearly so old as me. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I ought not to judge other men by myself. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: I'm young for so old a man. Maybe you're old
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  Speaker 1: for so young. That's it, said Graham. And I've a
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  Speaker 1: queer history. I know very little and history practically, I
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  Speaker 1: know no history. The sleeper and Julius Caesar are all
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  Speaker 1: the same to me. It's interesting to hear you talk
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  Speaker 1: of these things. I know a few things, said the
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  Speaker 1: old man. I know a thing or two. But hark.
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  Speaker 1: The two men became silent. Listening. There was a heavy thud,
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  Speaker 1: a concussion that made their seat shiver. The passers by
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  Speaker 1: stopped shouted to one another. The old man was full
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  Speaker 1: of questions. He shouted to a man who passed near. Graham,
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  Speaker 1: emboldened by his example, got up and accosted others. None
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  Speaker 1: knew what had happened. He returned to the seat and
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  Speaker 1: found the old man muttering vague interrogations in an undertone.
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  Speaker 1: For a while they said nothing to one another. The
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  Speaker 1: sense of this gigantic struggle, so near and yet so
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  Speaker 1: oppressed Graham's imagination, was this old man right? Was the
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  Speaker 1: report of the people right? And were the revolutionaries winning?
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  Speaker 1: Or were they all in error? And were the Red
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  Speaker 1: guards driving all before them? At any time the flood
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  Speaker 1: of warfare might pour into this silent quarter of the
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  Speaker 1: city and seize upon him. Again, he behooved him to
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  Speaker 1: learn all he could while there was time. He turned
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  Speaker 1: suddenly to the old man with a question and left
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  Speaker 1: it unsaid. But his motion moved the old man to
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  Speaker 1: speech again. Hey, but how things work together, said the
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  Speaker 1: old man, this sleeper that all the fools put their
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  Speaker 1: trust in. I've the whole history of it. I was
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  Speaker 1: always a good one for histories when I was a boy.
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  Speaker 1: I'm that old. I used to read printed books. You'd
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  Speaker 1: hardly think it likely you've seen none. They rot and
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  Speaker 1: dust so and the sanitary company burns them to make
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  Speaker 1: Ashley write. But they were convenient in their dirty way.
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  Speaker 1: One learnt a lot these new fangled babbel machines. They
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  Speaker 1: don't seem new fangle to you. Eh. They're easy to hear,
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  Speaker 1: easy to forget. But I've traced all the sleeper business
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  Speaker 1: from the first. You will scarcely believe it, said Graham slowly.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so ignorant. I've been so preoccupied in my own
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  Speaker 1: little affairs. My circumstances have been so odd. I know
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  Speaker 1: nothing of this sleeper's history. Who was he, hey, said
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  Speaker 1: the old man. I know, I know. He was a
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  Speaker 1: poor nobody and set on a playful woman, poor soul,
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  Speaker 1: and he fell into a trance. There's the old things.
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  Speaker 1: They had, those brown things, silver photographs, still showing him
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  Speaker 1: as he lay a gross and a half years ago,
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  Speaker 1: a grocer and a half of years set on a
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  Speaker 1: playful woman, poor soul, said Graham softly to himself, and
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  Speaker 1: then aloud, yes, well go on. You must know. He
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  Speaker 1: had a cousin named Worming, a solitary man without children,
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  Speaker 1: who made a big fortune speculating in roads, the first
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  Speaker 1: edomite roads. But surely you've heard no why he bought
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  Speaker 1: all the patent rights and made a big company. In
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  Speaker 1: those days they were groses of grosers, of separate businesses
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  Speaker 1: and business companies, groses of groseres. His roads killed the railroads,
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  Speaker 1: the old things. In two dozen years. He bought them
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  Speaker 1: up and edomited the tracks. And because he didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to break up his great property or led in shareholders,
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  Speaker 1: he left it all to the sleeper and put it
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  Speaker 1: under a board of trustees that he had picked and trained.
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  Speaker 1: He knew then the sleeper wouldn't wake, that he would
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  Speaker 1: go on sleeping, sleeping till he died. He knew that
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  Speaker 1: quite well. And plump A man in the United States
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  Speaker 1: who had lost two sons in a boat accident, followed
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  Speaker 1: that up with another great bequest. His trustees found themselves
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  Speaker 1: with a dozen myriads of lionsworth or more of property
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  Speaker 1: at the very beginning. What was his name, Graham? No,
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  Speaker 1: I mean the Americans is bister? Is bister? Cried Graham.
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  Speaker 1: Why I don't even know the name, of course not,
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  Speaker 1: said the old man. Of course not. People don't learn
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  Speaker 1: much in the schools nowadays. But I know all about him.
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  Speaker 1: He was a rich American who went from England, and
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  Speaker 1: he left the Sleeper even more than Warming. How he
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  Speaker 1: made it that, I don't know something about pictures by machinery,
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  Speaker 1: but he made it and left it. And so the
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  Speaker 1: Council had its start. It was just a council of
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  Speaker 1: trustees at first. And how did it grow? Hey, but
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  Speaker 1: you're not up to things. Money attracts money, and twelve
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  Speaker 1: brains are better than one. They played it cleverly. They
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  Speaker 1: worked politics with money, and kept on adding to the
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  Speaker 1: money by working currency and tariffs. They grew, they grew,
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  Speaker 1: and for years the twelve trustees hid the growing of
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  Speaker 1: the Sleeper's estate under double names and company titles, and
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  Speaker 1: all that the Council spread by title, deed, mortgage share,
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  Speaker 1: every political party, every newspaper they bought. If you listen
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  Speaker 1: to the old stories, you will see the Council growing
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  Speaker 1: and growing billions and billions of lions at last the
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  Speaker 1: Sleeper's estate, and all growing out of a whim, out
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  Speaker 1: of this Warming's will, and an accident to isbel sons,
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  Speaker 1: men are strange, said the old man. The strange thing
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  Speaker 1: to me is how the council worked together so long,
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  Speaker 1: as many as twelve. They worked in clicks from the first,
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  Speaker 1: and they've slipped back in my young days. Speaking of
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  Speaker 1: the council was like an ignorant man speaking of God.
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  Speaker 1: We didn't think they could do wrong. We didn't know
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  Speaker 1: of their women and all that or else I've got wiser.
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  Speaker 1: Men are strange, said the old man. Here are you
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  Speaker 1: young and ignorant, and me seventy years old? And I
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  Speaker 1: might reasonably before getting explaining it all to you short
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  Speaker 1: and clear seventy, he said, seventy. And I hear and
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  Speaker 1: see here better than I see and reason clearly, and
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  Speaker 1: keep myself up to all the happenings of things seventy.
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  Speaker 1: Life is strange. I was twenty before Ostrog was a baby.
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  Speaker 1: I remember him long before he'd pushed his way to
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  Speaker 1: the head of the wind vanes control. I've seen many changes, eh,
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  Speaker 1: I've worn the blue, and at last I've come to
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  Speaker 1: see this crush and darkness and tumult, and dead men
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  Speaker 1: carried by in heaps on the ways, and all his doing,
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  Speaker 1: all his doing, His voice died away in scarcely articulate
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  Speaker 1: praises of Ostrog. Graham thought let me see, he said,
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  Speaker 1: If I have it right, he extended a hand and
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  Speaker 1: ticked off points upon his fingers. The sleeper has been asleep, changed,
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  Speaker 1: said the old man. Perhaps, And meanwhile the sleeper's property
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  Speaker 1: grew in the hands of twelve trustees until it swallowed
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  Speaker 1: up nearly all the great ownership of the world. The
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  Speaker 1: twelve trustees, by virtue of this property have become masters
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  Speaker 1: of the world world, because they are the paying power,
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  Speaker 1: just as the old English parliament used to be. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: said the old man. That's so, that's a good comparison.
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  Speaker 1: You're not so. And now this ostrog has suddenly revolutionized
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  Speaker 1: the world by waking the sleeper, whom no one but
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  Speaker 1: the superstitious common people had ever dreamt would wake again,
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  Speaker 1: raising the sleeper to claim his property from the council
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  Speaker 1: after all these years. The old man endorsed the statement
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  Speaker 1: with a cough. It's strange, he said, to meet a
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  Speaker 1: man who learns these things for the first time. To night, ay,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: said Graham. It's strange. Have you ever been in a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: pleasure city? Said the old man. Oh my life, I've longed,
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  Speaker 1: he laughed. Even now, he said, I could enjoy a
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: little fun, enjoy seeing things anyhow, he mumbled a sentence.
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  Speaker 1: Graham did not understand the sleeper. When did he awake?
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  Speaker 1: Said Graham? Suddenly? Three days ago? Where is he? Ostrog
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  Speaker 1: has him? He escaped from the council not four hours ago,
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  Speaker 1: My dear sir, where were you at the time. He
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: was in the hall of the markets where the fighting
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: has been. All the city was screaming about it, all
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the babel machines everywhere. It was shouted. Even the fools
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: who speak for the council were admitting it. Everyone was
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: rushing off to see him. Everyone was getting arms. Were
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you drunk or asleep? And even then? But you're joking.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Surely you're pretending it was to stop the shouting of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the babel machines and prevent the people from gathering that
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: they turned off the electricity and put this damn darkness
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  Speaker 1: upon us. Do you mean to say I heard the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: sleeper was rescued, said Graham, But to come back a minute.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Are you sure us Strog has him? He won't let
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: him go, said the old man, and the sleeper. Are
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: you sure he's not genuine? I have never heard so.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: All fools think so. They think as if there wasn't
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a thousand things that were never heard. I know Ostrog
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: too well for that, did I tell you? In a way,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I'm a sort of relation of Ostrog's, a sort of
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: relation through my daughter in law. I suppose, well, I
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: suppose there's no chance of this sleeper asserting himself. I
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: suppose he's certain to be a puppet in Ostrog's hands
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: or the counsel's, as soon as the struggle is over.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: In Ostrog's hands, certainly, Why shouldn't he be a puppet?
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  Speaker 1: Look at his position, everything done for him, every pleasure possible.
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  Speaker 1: Why should he want to assert himself? What are these
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: pleasures cities? Said Graham abruptly. The old man made him
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: repeat the question. When at last he was assured of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Graham's words, he nudged him violently. That's too much, said he.
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  Speaker 1: You are poking fun at an old man. I've been
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  Speaker 1: suspecting you no more than you pretend. Perhaps I do,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: said Graham. But no, why should I go on acting? No?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I do not know what a pleasure city is, the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: old man laughed in an intimate way. What is more,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I do not know how to read your letters. I
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: do not know what money you use. I do not
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: know what foreign countries there are. I do not know
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  Speaker 1: where I am. I cannot count I do not know
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: where to get food, nor drink, nor shelter. Come, come,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: said the old man. If you had a glass of drink,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: now would you put it in your ear or your eye?
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I want you to tell me all these things. He he, Well,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: gentlemen who dress in silk must have their fun. A
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: withered hand caressed Graham's arm for a moment. Silk well, well,
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  Speaker 1: but all the same, I wish I was the man
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  Speaker 1: who was put up as the sleeper. He'll have a
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: fine time of it, all the pomp and pleasure. He's
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a queer looking face when they used to let anyone
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: go to see him. I've got tickets and been the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: image of the real one, as the photographs show him.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: This substitute used to be yellow. But he'll get fed up.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: It's a queer world. Think of the luck of it,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the luck of it. I expect he'll be sent to Capri.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: It's the best fun for a greener. His cough overtook
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: him again. Then he began mumbling enviously of pleasures and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: strange delights. The luck of it, the luck of it.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: All My life. I've been in London hoping to get
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: my chance. But you don't know that the sleeper died,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: said Graham. Suddenly, the old man made him repeat his words.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Men don't live beyond ten dozen. It's not in the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: order of things, said the old man. I'm not a fool.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Fools may believe it, but not me. Graham became angry
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: with the old man's assurance. Whether you are a fool
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: or not, he said, it happens you are wrong about
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the sleeper. Hey, you are wrong about the sleeper. I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: haven't told you before, but I will tell you now.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: You are wrong about the sleeper. How do you know.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: I thought you didn't know anything, not even about pleasure cities.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Graham paused, you don't know, said the old man. How
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: are you to know? It's very few men. I am
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the sleeper. He had to repeat it. There was a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: brief pause. There's a silly thing to say, sir, If
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you'll excuse me, it might get you into trouble at
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a time like this, said the old man. Graham, slightly dashed,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: repeated his assertion. I was saying I was the sleeper
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that years and years ago. I did indeed fall asleep
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: in a little stone built village, in the days when
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: there were hedgerows and villages and inns, and all the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: countryside cut up into little pieces, little fields. Have you
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: never heard of those days? And it is I I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: who speak to you, who awakened again these four days
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: since four days since the sleeper. But they've got the sleeper.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: They have him, and they won't let him go nonsense.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: You've been talking sensibly enough up to now. I can
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: see it as though I was there. There will be
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: lincol like a keeper just behind him. They won't let
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: him go about alone. Trust them, you're a queer fellow,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: one of these fun pokers. I see now why you've
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: been clipping your words so oddly. But he stopped abruptly,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and Graham could see his gesture, as if Ostrog would
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: let the sleeper run about alone. No, you're telling that
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to the wrong man altogether, eh, as if I should
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: believe what's your game? And besides, we've been talking of
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the sleeper. Graham stood up. Listen, he said, I am
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the sleeper. You're an odd man, said the old man,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: to sit here in the dark, talking clipped and telling
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: a lie of that sort. But Graham's exasperation fell to laughter.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: It is preposterous, he cried, preposterous. The dream must end.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: It gets wilder and wilder. Here am I in this
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: damned twilight. I never knew a dream in twilight before,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: an anachronism by two hundred years. And trying to persuade
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: an old fool that I am myself and meanwhile uugh.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: He moved in gusty irritation and went striding. In a moment,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the old man was pursuing him. Hey but don't go,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: cried the old man. I'm an old fool, I know.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Don't go. Don't leave me in all this darkness. Graham
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: hesitated stopped. Suddenly, the folly of telling his secret flashed
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: into his mind. I didn't mean to offend you, disbelieving you,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: said the old man coming near. It's no manner of harm.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: You call yourself the sleeper if it pleases you. That
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: tis a foolish trick. Graham hesitated, turned abruptly and went
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: on his way. For a time he heard the old
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: man's hobbling pursuit and his wheezy cries receding. But at
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: last the darkness swallowed him, and Graham saw him no more.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven