"'That's NO excuse.' I regarded him firmly. 'Your coming here is
a mistake,' I said, in a tone of friendly superiority. I feigned
to see if I had my matches, and then looked up at him frankly.
'If I were you I wouldn't wait for cock-crow--I'd vanish right away.'

"He looked embarrassed. 'The fact IS, sir--' he began.

"'I'd vanish,' I said, driving it home.

"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.'

"'You CAN'T?'

"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging
about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards
of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never
come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.'

"'Put you out?'

"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off.
There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.'

"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such
an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite
the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said,
and as I spoke I fancied I heard some one moving about down below.
'Come into my room and tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't,
of course, understand this,' and I tried to take him by the arm.
But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff