request.

After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and
explains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had
been murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else
there--it does not really matter which: you can be a ghost by
murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever
you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but,
on the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the
murdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.

Then there is the sceptical guest--it is always 'the guest' who
gets let in for this sort of thing, by-the-bye. A ghost never
thinks much of his own family: it is 'the guest' he likes to haunt
who after listening to the host's ghost story, on Christmas Eve,
laughs at it, and says that he does not believe there are such
things as ghosts at all; and that he will sleep in the haunted
chamber that very night, if they will let him.

Everybody urges him not to be reckless, but he persists in his
foolhardiness, and goes up to the Yellow Chamber (or whatever
colour the haunted room may be) with a light heart and a candle,
and wishes them all good-night, and shuts the door.

Next morning he has got snow-white hair.

He does not tell anybody what he has seen: it is too awful.

There is also the plucky guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a
ghost, and watches it, as it comes into the room and disappears