Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/237

me. I think liquor has something to do with the awful effect the electricity had upon me, because I had taken too much the night before, and was feeling very shaky indeed; but the result was that I simply fell full length in the bath-tub, just as you found me. I was unable to move anything except my fingers and toes. I did not appear to be hurt in the least, and my senses, instead of being dulled by the shock, seemed to be preternaturally sharp, and I realized in a moment that if this inability to move remained with me for five minutes I was a dead man—dead, not from the shock, but by drowning. I gazed up through that clear green water, and I could see the ripples on the surface slowly subsiding after my plunge into the tub. It reminded me of looking into an aquarium. You know how you see up through the water to the surface with the bubbles rising to the top. I knew that nobody would come in for at least half an hour, and even then I couldn't remember whether I had bolted the door or not. Sometimes I bolt it, and sometimes I don't. I didn't this morning, as it happens. All the time I felt that strength was slowly returning to me, for I continually worked my fingers and toes, and now feeling seemed to be coming up to my wrists and arms. Then I remembered that the vent was In the middle of the bath-tub; so, wrig-