It was not for some time that he was able
to give that selfless attention to exterior objects which is the
prowler's chief asset. For quite a while the only thought of which
he was conscious was that what he needed most was a cold drink and
a cold bath. Then, with a return to clear-headedness, he realized
that he was standing out in the open, visible from three sides to
anyone who might be in the vicinity, and he withdrew into the
shrubbery. He was not fond of the shrubbery, but it was a splendid
place to withdraw into. It swallowed you up.
This was the last move of the first part of Mr Pickering's active
campaign. He stayed where he was, in the middle of a bush, and
waited for the enemy to do something. What he expected him to do
he did not know. The subconscious thought that animated him was
that on a night like this something was bound to happen sooner or
later. Just such a thought on similarly stimulating nights had
animated men of his acquaintance thirty years ago, men who were
as elderly and stolid and unadventurous now as Mr Pickering had
been then. He would have resented the suggestion profoundly, but
the truth of the matter was that Dudley Pickering, after a late
start, had begun to play Indians.
Nothing had happened for a long time--for such a long time that,
in spite of the ferment within him, Mr Pickering almost began to
believe that nothing would happen.
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