torsion of his nerves, twisting upon each other like a vast swarm of tiny serpents; it seemed to begin with his ankles, spreading slowly to every part of his body; it was a veritable torture, so poignant that Vandover groaned under it, shutting his eyes.  He could not keep quiet a second—­to lie in bed was an impossibility; he threw the bed-clothes from him and sprang up.  He did not light the gas, but threw on his bathrobe and began to walk the floor.  Even as he walked, his eyelids drooped lower and lower.  The need of sleep overcame him like a narcotic, but as soon as he was about to lose himself he would be suddenly and violently awakened by the same shock, the same jangling recoil of his nerves.  Then his hands and head seemed to swell; next, it was as though the whole room was too small for him.  He threw open the window and, leaning upon his elbows, looked out.

The clouds had begun to break, the rain was gradually ceasing, leaving in the air a damp, fresh smell, the smell of wet asphalt and the odour of dripping woodwork.  It was warm; the atmosphere was dank, heavy, tepid.  One or two stars were out, and a faint gray light showed him the vast reach of roofs below stretching away to meet the abrupt rise of Telegraph Hill.  Not far off the slender, graceful smokestack puffed steadily, throwing off continually the little flock of white jets that rose into the air very brave and gay, but in the end dwindled irresolutely, discouraged, disheartened, fading sadly away, vanishing under the night, like illusions disappearing at the first touch of the outside world.  As Vandover leaned from his window, looking out into the night with eyes that saw nothing, the college slogan rose again from the great crowd of students who still continued to hold the streets.

“Rah, rah, rah!  Rah, rah, rah!”

He turned back into the room, groping among the bottles on his washstand for his bromide of potassium.  As he poured out the required dose into the teaspoon his hand twitched again sharply, flirting the medicine over his bared neck and chest, exposed by the bathrobe which he had left open at the throat.  It was cold, and he shivered a bit as he wiped it dry with the back of his hand.

He knew very well that his nervous attack was coming on again.  As he set down the bottle upon the washstand he muttered to himself, “Now I’m going to have a night of it.”  He began to walk the floor again with great strides, fighting with all his pitiful, shattered mind against the increasing hysteria, trying to keep out of his brain the strange hallucination that assailed it from time to time, the hallucination of a thing four-footed, a thing that sulked and snarled.  The hotel grew quiet; a watchman went down the hall turning out each alternate gas jet.  Just outside of the door was a burner in a red globe, fixed at a stair landing to show the exit in case of fire.  This burned all night and it streamed through the transom of Vandover’s room, splotching