The clock — which once upon a time had measured the hours of philosophic¹ meditation² — could not have ticked away more than five seconds when Wang materialized within the living-room. His concern primarily was with the delayed breakfast, but at once his slanting³ eyes became immovably fixed⁴ upon the unstirring curtain. For it was behind it that he had located the strange, deadened scuffling sounds which filled the empty room. The slanting eyes of his race could not achieve a round, amazed stare, but they remained still, dead still, and his impassive yellow face grew all at once careworn⁵ and lean with the sudden strain of intense, doubtful, frightened watchfulness⁷. Contrary impulses swayed his body, rooted to the floor-mats. He even went so far as to extend his hand towards the curtain. He could not reach it, and he didn’t make the necessary step forward.

The mysterious struggle was going on with confused thuds of bare feet, in a mute wrestling match, no human sound, hiss⁸, groan⁹, murmur¹⁰, or exclamation¹¹ coming through the curtain. A chair fell over, not with a crash but lightly, as if just grazed, and a faint metallic¹² ring of the tin bath succeeded. Finally the tense silence, as of two adversaries¹³ locked in a deadly grip, was ended by the heavy, dull

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