Though he spoke this like a joke, I think it was serious calculation.
Our Hebe was in a corner of the room, packing our cracked delft tea and
dinner-services in a basket. She soon suspended operations, and with
mouth and eyes wide open became an absorbed listener. Tom's experiences
were told nearly in these words:----

"I saw it three times, Dick--three distinct times; and I am perfectly
certain it meant me some infernal harm. I was, I say, in danger--in
_extreme_ danger; for, if nothing else had happened, my reason would
most certainly have failed me, unless I had escaped so soon. Thank God.
I _did_ escape.

"The first night of this hateful disturbance, I was lying in the
attitude of sleep, in that lumbering old bed. I hate to think of it. I
was really wide awake, though I had put out my candle, and was lying as
quietly as if I had been asleep; and although accidentally restless, my
thoughts were running in a cheerful and agreeable channel.

"I think it must have been two o'clock at least when I thought I heard a
sound in that--that odious dark recess at the far end of the bedroom. It
was as if someone was drawing a piece of cord slowly along the floor,
lifting it up, and dropping it softly down again in coils. I sate up
once or twice in my bed, but could see nothing, so I concluded it must
be mice in the wainscot. I felt no emotion graver than curiosity, and
after a few minutes ceased to observe it.

"While lying in this state, strange to say; without at first a suspicion
of anything supernatural, on a sudden I saw an old man, rather stout and
square, in a sort of roan-red dressing-gown, and with a black cap on his
head, moving stiffly and slowly in a diagonal direction, from the