CHAPTER I

_The Colonel's House in Bedford Place_

The dinner was at the colonel's--an old-fashioned, partly furnished,
two-story house nearly a century old which crouches down behind a
larger and more modern dwelling fronting on Bedford Place within a
stone's throw of the tall clock tower of Jefferson Market.

The street entrance to this curious abode is marked by a swinging
wooden gate opening into a narrow tunnel which dodges under the front
house. It is an uncanny sort of passageway, mouldy and wet from a
long-neglected leak overhead, and is lighted at night by a rusty lantern
with dingy glass sides.

On sunny days this gruesome tunnel frames from the street a delightful
picture of a bit of the yard beyond, with the quaint colonial door and
its three steps let down in a welcoming way.

Its retired location and shabby entrance brought it quite within the
colonel's income, and as the rent was not payable in advance, and the
landlord patient, he had surrounded himself not only with all the
comforts but with many of the luxuries of a more pretentious home. In
this he was assisted by his negro servant Chad,--an abbreviation of
Nebuchadnezzar,--who was chambermaid, cook, butler, body-servant, and
boots, and who by his marvelous tales of the magnificence of "de old
fambly place in Caartersville" had established a credit among the
shopkeepers on the avenue which would have been denied a much more
solvent customer.