Wogan drank it as though it had been so much water.
He was in that condition of fatigue when the most extraordinary events seem altogether commonplace and natural.

But as he felt the spirit warming his blood, he became aware of the great difference between his battered appearance and that of the old gentleman with the rich dress and the white linen who stooped so hospitably above him, and he began to wonder at the readiness of the hospitality.

Wogan might have been a thief, a murderer, for all Count Otto knew.

Yet the Count, with no other protection than his dog, had opened his window, and at that late hour of the night had welcomed him without a word of a question.
"Sir," said Wogan, "my visit is the most unceremonious thing in the world.

I plump in upon you in the dark of the morning, as I take it to be, and disturb you at your books without so much as knocking at the door." "It is as well you did not knock at the door," returned the Count, "for my servants are long since in bed, and your knock would very likely have reached neither their ears nor mine." And he drew up a chair and sat down opposite to Wogan, bending forward with his hands upon his knees.
The firelight played upon his pale, indoor face, and it seemed to Wogan that he regarded his guest with a certain wistfulness.