"But, the servants," said I.

"Have no servants," said my sister, boldly.

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the
possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The
notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very
doubtful.

"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another,
and we know they are frightened and do infect one another," said my
sister.

"With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative tone.

(The deaf stable-man. I kept him in my service, and still keep
him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.)

"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. And what
does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody
unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever
given, or taken? None."

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired,
every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with
no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the
pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through
me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after
that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth