Second Period Third Narrative - Chapter VI

"I am not used to brandy and water. It is quite possible----"

"Wait a bit, Mr. Franklin. I knew you were not used, too. I poured you
out half a wineglass-full of our fifty year old Cognac; and (more shame
for me!) I drowned that noble liquor in nigh on a tumbler-full of cold
water. A child couldn't have got drunk on it--let alone a grown man!"

I knew I could depend on his memory, in a matter of this kind. It was
plainly impossible that I could have been intoxicated. I passed on to
the second question.

"Before I was sent abroad, Betteredge, you saw a great deal of me when I
was a boy? Now tell me plainly, do you remember anything strange of me,
after I had gone to bed at night? Did you ever discover me walking in my
sleep?"

Betteredge stopped, looked at me for a moment, nodded his head, and
walked on again.

"I see your drift now, Mr. Franklin!" he said "You're trying to
account for how you got the paint on your nightgown, without knowing it
yourself. It won't do, sir. You're miles away still from getting at the
truth. Walk in your sleep? You never did such a thing in your life!"

Here again, I felt that Betteredge must be right. Neither at home nor
abroad had my life ever been of the solitary sort. If I had been a
sleep-walker, there were hundreds on hundreds of people who must have
discovered me, and who, in the interest of my own safety, would have
warned me of the habit, and have taken precautions to restrain it.