His friend, he knew, would be very shortly with him.  It was not every night that he came, but always, before his coming, Ernest Henry knew of his approach—­knew by the happy sense of comfort that stole softly about him, knew by the dismissal of all those fears and shapes and terrors that, otherwise, so easily beset him.  He sucked his thumb now, and felt his bump, and stared at the ceiling and knew that he would come.  During the first months after Ernest Henry’s arrival on this planet his friend was never absent from him at all, was always there, drawing through his fingers the threads of the old happy life and the new alarming one, mingling them so that the transition from the one to the other might not be too sharp—­reassuring, comforting, consoling.  Then there had been hours when he had withdrawn himself, and that earlier world had grown a little vaguer, a little more remote, and certain things, certain foods and smells and sounds had taken their place within the circle of realised facts.  Then it had come to be that the friend only came at night, came at that moment when the nurse had gone, when the room was dark, and the possible beasts—­the first beast, the second beast, and the third beast—­began to creep amongst those cool, grey shadows in the hollow of the room.  He always came then, was there with his arm about Ernest Henry, his great body, his dark beard, his large, firm hands—­all so reassuring that the beasts might do the worst, and nothing could come of it.  He brought with him, indeed, so much more than himself—­brought a whole world of recollected wonders, of all that other time when Ernest Henry had other things to do, other disciplines, other triumphs, other defeats, and other glories.  Of late his memory of the other time had been untrustworthy.  Things during the day-time would remind him, but would remind him, nevertheless, with a strange mingling of the world at present about him, so that he was not sure of his visions.  But when his friend was with him the memories were real enough, and it was the nurse, the fire, the red wallpaper, the smell of toast, the taste of warm milk, that were faint and shadowy.

His friend was there, just as always, suddenly sitting there on the bed with his arm round Ernest Henry’s body, his dark beard just tickling Ernest Henry’s neck, his hand tight about Ernest Henry’s hand.  They told one another things in the old way without tiresome words and sounds; but, for the benefit of those who are unfortunately too aged to remember that old and pleasant intercourse, one must make use of the English language.  Ernest Henry displayed his bump, and explained its origin; and then, even as he did so, was aware that the reality of the bump made the other world just a little less real.  He was proud that he had walked and stood up, and had been the master of his circumstance; but just because he had done so he was aware that his friend was a little, a very little farther away to-night than he had ever been before.