house with us. 'Pray don't imagine I want to know,' I replied. 'Neither
do I want to tell,' he rejoined. 'I don't care to have fellows laugh at
me!' 'That's just what I don't care to do. Nothing hurts me less than
being laughed at, so I take no pleasure in it,' I said. 'What I do
want,' said he, 'is to have you tell Mrs. ---' There! I was on the very
edge of saying her name! and you would have known who she was, all of
you! I _am_ glad I caught myself in time!--'tell Mrs. Blank,' said he,
'why I went.' 'Very well! I will. Why are you going?' 'Can't you help a
fellow to an excuse? I'm not going to give _her_ the reason.' 'Tell me
what you want me to say, and I will tell her you told me to say so.' 'I
will tell _you_ the truth.' 'Fire away, then.' 'I was in a beastly funk
last night. I dare say you think as I did, that a man ought never to be
a hair off the cool?' 'That depends,' I replied; 'there are some things,
and there may be more, at which any but an idiot might well be scared;
but some fools are such fools they can't shiver! What's the matter? I
give you my word I'll not make game of it.' The fellow looked so seedy,
don't you know, I couldn't but be brotherly, or, at least, cousinly to
him!--that don't go for much, does it, Lufa? 'Well,' he said, 'I will
tell you. Last night, I had been in bed about five minutes, and hadn't
even had time to grow sleepy, when I heard a curious shuffling in the
passage outside my door, and an indescribable terror came over me. To be
perfectly open with you, however, I _had_ heard that was the sign she
was coming!' '_Who_ coming?' said I. 'The ghost, of course!' he
answered. 'The ghost!' 'You don't mean to say you never heard of the
ghost?' 'Never heard a word of it.' 'Well, they don't like to speak of
it, but everybody knows it!' 'Go on,' said I; and he did, but plainly
with a tearing effort. 'The shuffling was like feet in slippers much too
big. As if I had been five instead of five-and-thirty, I dived under the
blankets, and lay so for minutes after the shuffling had ceased. But at
length I persuaded myself it was but a foolish fancy, and I had never