[Closed] All in a Night’s Work (Umberto)

[Fionn]

Dentis 1, 2719 | So Late It’s Early
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

The blond squinted incredulously at his employer—if that was the best term for Umberto—unable to believe that he’d heard correctly.

“I’m missing the point?” he questioned flatly. The youth didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry, but perhaps screaming would be better, more satisfying. Fionn wasn’t able for this, and it wasn’t simply because he was drunk; frankly, he was rarely truly capable of enduring the scholar. He kept talking and the passive could only stare at him, blinking owlishly, wondering if he was caught in a strange dream. The boy had never had drugs, but he’d heard that some could make you dream queer things while you were awake. Could he have taken some without realising it? It would certainly explain the peculiar surreality that he was currently experiencing.

“I can take days off but they ain’t worth much t’me. No enjoyment in ‘em,” the teenager muttered, not expecting that he’d be heard. It seemed all too clear that his words were falling on deaf ears. Then again, maybe he hadn’t spoken at all, and Fionn had simply imagined saying all of it. What had he even said? At this point, he couldn’t rightly remember. Yes, so like a dream, although he supposed that he could recall the essence of it, even if the details were lost.

Not that any of it seemed important now, not when he could feel his stomach roiling. The coffee did not agree with him, its aftertaste still lingering in his mouth like muck. He really couldn’t fathom why anyone would willingly drink the stuff and while it didn’t seem quite as horrific when chilled, it was still something that he could have done without—especially now.

Thankfully, the galdor wanted to distract him by talking about how the University took in passives for the sake of protection. Oh yes, he’d been in need of something humorous. The youth laughed nastily, descending into a dark chuckle at the other’s idealistic view.

“Oh yes, our protection, sure,” he muttered, snorting derisively and finding himself burping noisily. Fionn covered his mouth, less out of observance of good manners and more to stem anything else that might choose to follow the wind. It had brought up the taste of whatever was stewing in his stomach, an unpleasant mix of coffee and beer that was so much worse than how both had tasted on the way down.

Circle preserve him, he didn’t want to throw up, and it had nothing to do with how displeased Umberto was liable to be about his study floor becoming soiled. Maybe if he didn’t think about it then it would ebb. Perhaps he should avoid laughing as well, but then perhaps he should tell his guardian to stop saying things that were humorous—even unintentionally.

“I’m no’ tha’ dangerous,” the servant slurred as if drifting off to sleep, tugging at the collar of his shirt, flapping it slightly to allow some air to circulate, “even if I blow up.”

The passive was warm, overly warm so that sweat was beginning to prickle over his body. Gods, why was it so warm? Sometimes he found himself heated up when he drank tea too quickly, but the same thing couldn’t have happened with the coffee; the coffee was cold.

He was back to a dream-like state, listening to the galdor in a detached sort of way as if he was speaking from a great distance. He cradled his forehead in his hand, eyes flickering as he focused on his breathing.

In and out.

“The University is correct that order and structure is proper…”

In and out.

“...to keep you on an even keel, grounded.”

In and out. Alioe, he really didn’t feel well. Maybe he should get up and try to get some air. It felt as if everything good had been sucked from his surroundings, oxygen severely lacking so that Fionn felt smothered.

“But their methods are, to be blunt, mad.”

The blond’s head jerked up as if moved by a violent puppeteer. The movement had been a mistake, doing nothing to ease the sensation of smothering, and he was fairly sweating as well, that awful taste coming back. His sound of his own breathing seemed to fill the world around him, but he had caught what the academic had had to say about those who had gated him: mad. He didn’t agree with them. There was more but the passive didn’t really hear it, the rise and fall of the other’s voice becoming a hum of background noise.

The teenager leaned forward, shifted in his seat as if to rise but he felt too weak and unsteady to trust his legs. His fingers grasped for the carafe instead, tucking it under his chin as his stomach churned. The boy clung to the container for dear life, hearing his breath echo inside it before the nausea surged and he retched.

It was deeply unpleasant, and undoubtedly little better to witness, but when he finished purging the night’s sins, the boy could say that he felt better. Sure, he was cold and clammy from the sweat, weakened and drained as well as a bit more clear-headed, but definitely better.

“Fuck,” he grimaced, “don’t let me drink. Ever again.”

Leaning back in the chair, he peered at the carafe, lips twisting in distaste.

“Sorry about that.”

He wiped his mouth delicately before reaching for water, swilling it around to try to remove the taste and soothe the burning sensation; he swallowed painfully.

“Did you… say something about uh… not getting into too much trouble?” he asked, clearly chagrined. “I didn’t mean to but uh… yeah. Sorry. At least this is, um... easier to clean?”

He lifted the carafe to highlight its presence and almost immediately regretted it because doubtless the man didn’t want to be looking at it. He put it to one side, smiling sheepishly as he tried his feet once more. No, maybe not a good idea to try to go downstairs to clean it just yet. Better to take a breather.

“Do you really disagree with them so strongly? The University and what they do with… with people like me?” he asked hesitantly. “You think them mad?”

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

T

alking past each other again. It seemed to be in danger of becoming habit. Could it be otherwise? The boy and he had nothing like the shared perspective, still less in shared experience. Fionn was incapable of listening. It was clear enough he could hear the words, but he took his own connotations. Connotations always for the worst. Would it be possible to use that, to make a tool of the cynicism and learned helplessness? He could likely move the boy about like a puppet, giving him tasks and receiving only grudging compliance. White mutiny would be the result. The boy was clever enough to accomplish that. A mutineer, however seemingly obedient, was not something he was prepared to tolerate.

Fionn could always be sent back. Intolerable. To do so would be to admit failure, to call further attention to his already tenuous reputation. The whispers were already in his mind’s ear: ‘Heretical ideas, unorthodox habits, and the worst, he cannot even keep a servant!’. The scandal, the horror. The damned nuisance. No, the boy had been wished upon him. And so, the boy would have to be made to serve the purpose.

A proper servant should be able to question their master, to correct their foibles, and make the sure the coffee was ready on time. Fionn had enough spirit for it, even if it was all channeled into a gloomy obstreperousness. A sullen servant was not the best of ideas.

First he would have to provide the boy with direction, and hope that sense would follow on. Not much hope of that; certainly he was not sanguine. But then neither of them could be said to possess that cheery and hopeful humor.

“You are missing the point.” And perhaps I am also, a cheering thought. “I do not request and require that your day’s off be full of sunshine and lilacs, merely that you take some time to tend to yourself. A servant run ragged is no use to me.” It would be worse than useless. He could run himself ragged quite well enough. A house with two tattered and exhausted denizens was appalling. “Lie still in the dark if it pleases you. No skin off my sallow nose. Neither of us are machines. We tire, we grow weary. And I need you to be on hand to fit with my own schedule.” A schedule that knew no clock, which had quarreled with time; quarreled and won.

He looked at the boy now, a closer inspection, as though he was one of his father’s moths. Eyes red, skin of a waxen texture and going pale. Colorless, listless, folded in upon himself. A study in misery. Misery, so they said, loved company. Well, whoever they were, they could drown themselves in a butt of wine. He looked at the boy again. Perhaps that would be too much like company.

And now the boy was laughing, another dark and bitter sound. He laughed because he did not understand. Perhaps no one understood. It was perfectly clear to him that the Anaxi means of handling the Passive problem made about as much sense as a fish in parliament, but it seemed few and far between could see likewise. Oh, the dreamers of the Society for Passive Equality had their views, but they were as baffling and wrong headed as the University’s.

“Listen to me as carefully as your sloshed ears can handle.” He lowered his voice, his tone shifted into something like weary resignation. Vowels elongated, diction slowed. “The protection of the University is an illusion at best and a cruel joke at worst. It does no one any good. I am agreeing with you Fionn, even if you can’t accept the fact.”

The boy continued in his obstreperousness. Continued to mutter half to himself. Was he trying to convince himself that he was no danger? That he was just some unfortunate who fate had decided to curse? That was foolishness. The boy was a danger, mostly likely to himself. Certainly a danger to his liver. More mutterings, more groans, and a half-doubtful statement about his blowing up.

Certainly the explosion that followed hard upon was more malodorous than catastrophic. The rug might have a different opinion. Well, emesis was common enough as a response to too much drink. It should not have been surprising. Still, the watery alcohol-and-acid pool the boy had vomited up was far from pleasant.

“I’ll grant you that explosion, magnificently done. But no more tonight. I’ve had enough demonstrations.” A thin, watery sort of thing, not enough food to settle the boy’s stomach, all the rest turned coffee-black and putrid. The rug would have to go. A shame. He was fond of that rug. With a delicate hand he rolled up the now-late rug and kicked to the side.

“Look at me Fionn. Well as best you can. You may think me frivolous, and I enjoy a good frivol.” It was one of the only ways he knew not to spend most of his life in a languid stupor on the reading couch. Mad laughter or mad scholarship, those were what kept him going. The latter to keep his mind occupied and turning, the other to ward off despair. Either way, he and madness were old acquaintances, and he could recognize madness when it called to him. “But I am serious when I say the University is mad to treat Passives as they do. It is illogical and contrary to sense. Worse, it is inherently paradoxical.”

He’d been turning the ideas over in his head for some time. Only now, in the presence of a dissipated youth and a ruined rug did they snap into focus. “Suppose we imagine Passives to be a kind of explosive, and one which is known to be sensitive to pressure. Why then is this explosive kept in a pressure-vessel with more than usual atmospheric pressure constantly applied? Surely that would tend to bring about a greater risk of explosion.” It seemed a reasonable chain of reasoning, conclusion flowing from premise and all that. Still mad. “So, that’s nonsensical on its face. To further illustrate this point, explain to me, if you or anyone else can, why into the pressure vessel with a volatile explosive we have chosen to place all the nation’s children. Yes, such a sensible idea. Cloister a bunch of potentially dangerous and ill-treated magical bombs with a whole generation of children. How in all the netherworlds does that make any sense? Did our learned ancestors have a particular dislike for children? Did they enjoy seeing them in constant arcane threat?”

The more he held forth on the subject, the dafter it sounded. Well, the ancients were not possessed of any more inherent wisdom than the present generation. It appeared to be quite the contrary. “We are therefore left to conclude that our learned ancestors were either idiots, possessed of a particularly impressive degree of destructive nihilism, or mad as hatters.” As a nihilist who had an interest in hats, he considered he was qualified to speak to at least two of these matters. Perhaps to all three. “So, yes, I cannot but disagree, on purely pragmatic grounds, with the current means of handling Passives. It seems a system designed at every point to invite failure. It is only a matter of time before the whole University goes the way of my unfortunate rug.”

[Fionn]

Dentis 1, 2719 | So Late It’s Early
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

Unsurprisingly, it was rather difficult to concentrate on much of anything when your stomach was preparing to mutiny. His brain absolutely wasn’t in his abdomen and yet, it was that region that seemed to be controlling matters right now. Sure, he managed to remain a surly prick up until things got rather desperate, but he hadn’t truly taken in much of what the galdor had said after a certain point. No, his concerns were definitely focused on things other than whatever the other was spouting about the University.

Aim, for instance, especially when his body was so very keen on being against him in that regard. His equilibrium was at least a little bit fucked and considering the sense of urgency that accompanied his illness, it was a wonder that he had a chance to grab the carafe at all before everything went to hell. After that, he was lost to his own private misery and rather unaware of his surroundings, given that his perception of the world had narrowed considerably. Once it was over, the passive knew that what had occurred was impolite at best—if entirely unavoidable.

The teenager had offered his apologies, almost shrugging off the incident as if it hadn’t occurred, before realising that things had gone rather worse than he’d believed. As it turned out, his aim had been somewhat off—not that he could be blamed, he really had done his best under the circumstances—but while the carafe had borne the brunt of what he’d disgorged, it wasn’t the only victim. He could add shame to his feelings of sheepishness and misery.

It might have been possible to salvage things if it weren’t for the coffee, but it was truly awful stuff. The galdor might well decide that it was fit for disposal, but an attempt could still be made. No doubt there was some magic that might have helped, something of the Living variety perhaps, but even a suggestion of such a usage would likely be viewed with disapproval, as it hardly counted as ‘noble’. Besides, the youth couldn’t do magic and if anyone ought to handle this mess, it was him; after all, it was his fault.

But tomorrow. Fionn was feeling especially drained and downright wretched. Not to mention that he now had to contend with the emotions and thoughts that he’d attempted to drown with alcohol in the first place.

“I really am sorry. For the demonstration,” the passive murmured, rubbing his belly as if to soothe it. “I think the coffee- It makes me feel a little ill at the best of times…” he pointed out, pressing his lips together in a thin line as he turned his attention to Umberto as directed. His mind remained on the unpleasantness he’d caused, least of all because the evidence was beginning to assail his nostrils.

He was in too delicate a state to contend with it right now, but he needed to listen to the academic. Could he breathe solely through his lips but somehow manage to be subtle about it?

The older man seemed rather indifferent regarding the whole situation with his passive servant, carrying on as if nothing of consequence had occurred and they were simply having an erudite discussion. Never mind that the boy had been so sozzled up until quite recently that it was a wonder he had understood as much as he had, given Umberto’s propensity for using advanced vocabulary, because now Fionn could hardly concentrate on anything beyond the unfortunate state of this meatsack that he currently inhabited—regrettably.

Still he had to wonder how the man could be so blasé about the situation. As far as the youth was aware, the man didn’t have drunken teenagers throwing up on the floor of his study on a regular basis unless they did it when he was out of the room, which seemed terribly unlikely.

“Pressure, yes… not that that does it—I don’t think so anyway,” the blond murmured, feeling something rising within him again, an unpleasant movement working its way up to his oesophagus.

“We don’t tend to go off too often or else-”

His body interrupted him as the rising sensation found its way up his throat and he had to cover his mouth, hoping to keep in whatever was trying to escape; he belched loudly. There was some relief in discovering that this emission was a gaseous one, but the taste that had burst over his tongue was truly vile.

“Oh! That’s fucking- Urgh! Excuse me!” he groaned, reaching for more water with a grimace, taking the time to swill the liquid around before he swallowed it.

The boy’s brow creased as he tried and failed to retrieve the train of thought he’d been forced to abandon. No matter, it didn’t feel particularly important, even if it was mildly irritating.

Bombs, children, oh yes! Passives in Brunnhold being dangerous.

“We tend to have a limited range and we aren’t all deadly. When we are, no one cares if a few passives instantly freeze to death or start pouring blood.”

The bitterness had returned although it lacked its earlier potency, tempered now as the youth sank back into the chair and covered his face with a hand, eyes closing.

“I might be able to salvage the rug. I think I’m very good at getting bodily fluids out of things,” he explained then groaned. “If the University can be helped though… well, I don’t care. Not right now. I’m wondering if I can salvage the state of my stomach. Alioe save me.”

The blond considered rising but didn’t know if he was up to it yet, his legs had gone wobbly. Had they been this unsteady before he got sick? No doubt, but this was likely a different state as he didn’t imagine that they’d been trembling and weak.

“Maybe I should be calling in Naulas…”

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

941 G Lampwine Square - The Stacks

The First of Dentis, The Small Hours

H

e should be angry. Furious even. If he had any proper feelings of rank and status he should be hounding the servant, demanding he clean up the effluvia in some humiliating fashion. It would be the expected thing. Fionn seemed to expect it at any moment. He himself considered it wonderfully strange that he’d not snapped and done some ill-considered magic to plug the boy up, or cause a freezing wind to howl through his empty head and box him about the ears. All that would accomplish is an even more discomposed Fionn, a sore throat, and the danger of potentially disapproving mona. It was too late for any of those. Or too early. It was too much toward an unnatural hour to bother with being angry. Exhaustion could make him snappish, yes, or apparently, sap him of all spleen. Perhaps the mineral water really was doing its job and regulating his moods rather better. More likely the tablets Abe had given him. The wonders of the modern pharmacopeia.

He could lament the rug tomorrow. Rugs are notoriously lax in their mourning rituals and a day would not signify.

“We shall leave the coffee to the side for the nonce then. No sense in seeing more of your evening strewn about the floor.” Flippancy was a wonderful thing. For one it helped prevent anger. And there was anger rising. Anger at Fionn for his stupidity and for his wallowing, anger at the University for making the boy so susceptible to such things, anger at himself for being unable to handle any kind of servant. Above all, anger at having his work interrupted. The words had flown away, the parses resolved into meaningless drivel. Perhaps they had always been meaningless. It was a disturbing thought, and not a new one. Effort with no resolution. Activity without direction.

The boy went on with his predictable miseries. The griping of his guts, his sorry lot, etc etc. They seemed to be the only themes on which he was able to hold forth. That would never do. If the lad was going to haunt this place, and the University demanded it, then he had to provide at least some distraction, some conversation. That and he had to understand the shopping and the errands were to be his province. A servant was a servant, after all.

A servant who was magically dangerous was something altogether different. The boy had tried to play it down, stating that the danger was minimal, uncommon. Shit and nonsense. It was the kind of thing the magisters wanted to believe. Perhaps they really did believe it. There was something prurient about the lot of the passives, as though seeing these unfortunates reduced to menials, to mere objects, was balm to the psyche. It did not bear much more in the way of consideration, not tonight at any event. Tomorrow, or the next day, he could write a strongly worded letter. Or not. It would not help his reputation in the slightest. Unorthodox monic theory was one thing, radical social views were quite another. His spleen did not rise to such a missive in any event. The situation irritated him, that was all.

“The individual danger of any one passive is immaterial. Some of your ilk and as dangerous as a whole battery of field artillery. And seventy times seven times more unpredictable. The statistics alone are worrisome.” And yet had it ever happened? Had the University ever been wholly engulfed in arcane fire or hideous nightmares? Certainly not in recent decades. He would have heard of it. If nothing else, his father would have written a tetchy letter about the inconvenience. “The point is that all this,” he gestured in the general direction of the University proper, “is about as unsuitable an environment as can be imagined for you and your fellows. Density can be danger, after all.”

The boy would be useless for days. His guts would churn and he would have a whale for a head. A dispeptic whale with a sour disposition. There was nothing for it but to keep Fionn from liquor for the foreseeable future. If given free reign he would drink himself to an early death. It might not be his liver that killed him, more likely he would fall down a flight of stairs or be run over by a carriage as he staggered about in some stupor. Of course, he could go off in a swirl of fire, madness, and freezing winter winds.

Did the boy know the nature of his diablerie? His words were specific, spoken from experience. “Do you know what happens when your magic makes itself manifest? Blood and ice? Is that what it is? Hemorrhagic then? Along with frostbite and shivering?” He gave the boy a hard look with cold dark eyes. “Have you ever harmed anyone by such means?” Or had he himself been harmed? It was not impossible. “Or have you experienced this? Did you bleed and freeze when one of your fellows could no longer endure their situation?” What would such a thing feel like? His own magic was either strange and full of images, voices, and memories all jumbled together. Some of the memories were not his own. He had no experience with diableries, and never been within their effect. Could such things be carefully triggered? Could the murmurings and cries of the mona be heard in such things? What unknown words would the world shout amidst such abominations of magic?

Later, later he would ask such a question. All he wanted now for the boy to recover himself enough to be sent to bed, and for himself to collapse onto the reading couch. It would be hours. It might be longer.

“If you really wish to invoke Naulas, if you feel that he is knocking on the doors of your soul, perhaps It would be best to find you a physician.”

[Fionn]

Dentis 1, 2719 | Quite Early Actually
Umberto’s House, The Stacks

.

It would hardly be dignified to slide from the chair onto the floor and crawl to his room, but it was tempting— and doubtful that the youth had any remaining dignity at this late juncture. It would certainly be easier than standing, but the mere idea of dragging himself across the boards seemed exhausting and perhaps he’d only end up slumped a few feet hence, content to slumber on the wood. Doubtless, Umberto wouldn’t find that particularly amusing, and might not be happy about leaving him there either.

No, in theory, if he could simply get to his feet, he’d be able to totter off and collapse after traversing the necessary distance with far greater speed and far less effort—in the long run. After all, he’d managed marvellous feats while upright despite incredible unsteadiness as his presence here proved. Alas, he had the almost insurmountable task of actually standing first though. Once that was done, the rest would be a doddle—comparatively speaking.

Removing himself from the chair wasn’t proving to be a simple task and what was more, it didn’t seem as if the academic had an inkling of the youth’s intention to depart when his body permitted it. It was doubtful that Umberto wished for him to remain here for the rest of the night—or morning—but he also didn’t appear to have the expectation of Fionn quitting his company in the immediate future. It was one thing to order him to sit down rather than risking a descent on the stairs, but surely he wouldn’t prevent the passive from going to sleep off his current condition, would he?

“I’ve not seen anything to suggest that we’re dangerous together, we don’t seem to set each other off. Who knows though? All the nexi together...” he shrugged, only vaguely aware that he’d used a term that could well be unfamiliar to the galdor—unless Moore had shared his research with him.

The blond didn’t even bother to tease out thoughts on the matter, usually all too eager to speculate and pose questions—as clear an indication as any of how out of sorts he felt. Instead, he contemplated drinking more water to soothe the burning itch in his throat and the sensation of thirst that it created.

The idea of simply excusing himself and putting all of his efforts into becoming upright was growing rather larger in his mind when his companion asked about his diablerie. A knot appeared between his brows, the boy uncertain why the other seemed so prepared to believe that the kind of magic that Fionn channelled could be deadly. Then again, he talked as if he expected such things to be minor inconveniences. When that servant’s diablerie had gone off in the Dining Hall, some students hadn’t gotten a bit chilly or found that some of their extremities were prepared to—quite literally—drop off. No, people had died. Rather gruesomely if some of the stories were to be believed, and the middle Madden didn’t know if he ought to do so, but his imagination always wanted to tug him in that direction.

Teenagers with limbs frozen solid, skin grown brittle enough that a drop to the floor could crack it deeply, leaving fissures in what had been living flesh mere moments before. Scarlet fluid bursting free of its confines only to be solidified as ghastly fountains, blooming from ruptured blood vessels.

It could all be the work of imagination, but he struggled to believe that his kin could be so creative. Still, he refrained from snapping at the man about it, mainly because he was caught between disgust for the galdor and a general weariness. Instead, he mustered the energy to explain the comparable tameness of his own arcane emission.

He sighed, not able to suppress a roll of his eyes, and instantly regretting the way it fucked with his sense of equilibrium.

“No, nothing like that. It’s… it’s force. It didn’t affect me directly but for those around me… I suppose it just pushed and kept pushing, a hard push but no one got hurt much. A bloody nose and that kind of thing, I guess.”

Memories of his brother surfaced, utterly terrified and dealing congested bloodily, the elder boy laughing hysterically, completely unhinged, and perhaps more frightened than Oísin had been. After all, the magic had ripped through him first before it found itself an external outlet.

Such recollections bubbled unhappily beneath the surface, only increasing his natural inclination to be irritable and unstable. With that in mind, it was no wonder that the other’s response to his remark about Naulas exploded out of the teenager.

“Oh all the gods! Can you not let me be dramatic in clocking peace?” he snapped, wincing after the fact. Too late to temper his irritation now, could hardly shove the words back in his mouth anymore that he could make himself reverse the state of what he’d violently purged. At least he hadn’t used stronger language for a change.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have- I just feel awful is all. No point taking it out on you, it’s not your fault. It’s all my own fault”—his voice grew softer, close to a whisper as he echoed words drummed into him long ago— “all my own fault.”

Teeth ground in his jaw, the youth gripping the arms of his chair as he let his digits dig into them for dear life, palms pushing down firm to get him to his feet. It wasn’t quite as simple as that, his legs having to be suitably engaged and mastered too. It took some interesting manoeuvring, and the sort that he could ordinarily do without conscious thought while sober, but then he was somehow doing it.

Sure, he wasn’t stiffly upright, body bowed so that his elbow rested on the chair back and he was experiencing the unease and instability that came while walking over icy ground—a fascinating achievement considering that he was stationary. But he’d done it! He could leave, even if the floor felt somewhat treacherous underfoot.

The youth made an effort to straighten, aiming for a dignified posture but deflating somewhat at the observance of his own misdeeds on the rug—an unpleasant reminder.

He cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d best be off! And it’d be a good idea for you too, sir.”

Frankly, he didn’t care a whit what the part-Bastian did in the immediate future, and he was already regretting indulging in any semblance of manners because he didn’t have the patience for something which seemed extremely silly in light of current circumstances.

Still, he managed to fix his gaze on the other’s face—weaving slightly from side to side, softened around the edges as his perceptions teetered—so that he could give him a nod of acknowledgement. Then if his master didn’t make an attempt to stop him, the boy would undertake a staggering journey—just some gentle zigzagging really, practically straight—to his own room.