Tom agreed, and, after an interval, said----

"I have been thinking, Richard, that it is a long time since I saw my
father, and I have made up my mind to go down to-morrow and return in a
day or two, and you can take rooms for us in the meantime."

I fancied that this resolution, obviously the result of the vision which
had so profoundly scared him, would probably vanish next morning with
the damps and shadows of night. But I was mistaken. Off went Tom at peep
of day to the country, having agreed that so soon as I had secured
suitable lodgings, I was to recall him by letter from his visit to my
Uncle Ludlow.

Now, anxious as I was to change my quarters, it so happened, owing to a
series of petty procrastinations and accidents, that nearly a week
elapsed before my bargain was made and my letter of recall on the wing
to Tom; and, in the meantime, a trifling adventure or two had occurred
to your humble servant, which, absurd as they now appear, diminished by
distance, did certainly at the time serve to whet my appetite for change
considerably.

A night or two after the departure of my comrade, I was sitting by my
bedroom fire, the door locked, and the ingredients of a tumbler of hot
whisky-punch upon the crazy spider-table; for, as the best mode of
keeping the

Black spirits and white,
Blue spirits and grey,