It seemed to me, being as I say half dazed and half awake--I know, sir, you will take this into account--as if it had been you, being in the same direction as the thing I had fired at.

And so I was about to fire again when you pulled off the wrap." Here I asked him--I was cross-examining now and felt at home: "You say you thought I was the thing you fired at.

What thing ?" The man scratched his head, but made no reply.
"Come, sir," I said, "what thing; what was it like ?" The answer came in a low voice: "I don't know, sir.

I thought there was something; but what it was, or what it was like, I haven't the faintest notion.

I suppose it was because I had been thinking of the pistol before I went to sleep, and because when I came in here I was half dazed and only half awake--which I hope you will in future, sir, always remember." He clung to that formula of excuse as though it were his sheet-anchor.