第34章

'"Why, thus," he returned."Here is a Ghost to be disproved.Well! I cannot answer for what my fancy might do if I were alone here, or what tricks my senses might play with me if they had me to themselves.But, in company with another man, and especially with Dick, I would consent to outface all the Ghosts that were ever of in the universe."'"I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much importance to- night," said the other.

'"Of so much," rejoined the leader, more seriously than he had spoken yet, "that I would, for the reason I have given, on no account have undertaken to pass the night here alone."'It was within a few minutes of One.The head of the younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and it drooped lower now.

'"Keep awake, Dick!" said the leader, gaily."The small hours are the worst."'He tried, but his head drooped again.'"Dick!" urged the leader."Keep awake!"'"I can't," he indistinctly muttered."I don't know what strange influence is stealing over me. I can't."'His companion looked at him with a sudden horror, and I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on the stroke of One, and I felt that the second watcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send him to sleep.

'"Get up and walk, Dick!" cried the leader."Try!"'It was in vain to go behind the slumber's chair and shake him.One o'clock sounded, and I was present to the elder man, and he stood transfixed before me.'To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story, without hope of benefit.To him alone, I was an awful phantom making a quite useless confession.I foresee it will ever be the same.The two living men together will never come to release me.When I appear, the senses of one of the two will be locked in sleep; he will neither see nor hear me; my communication will ever be made to a solitary listener, and will ever be unserviceable. Woe!Woe! Woe!'

As the Two old men, with these words, wrung their hands, it shot into Mr.Goodchild's mind that he was in the terrible situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr.Idle's immoveability was explained by his having been charmed asleep at One o'clock.In the terror of this sudden discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that he snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great width.Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr.Idle from the sofa and rushed down-stairs with him.

'What are you about, Francis?' demanded Mr.Idle.'My bedroom is not down here.What the deuce are you carrying me at all for? I can walk with a stick now. I don't want to be carried. Put me down.'

Mr.Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked about him wildly.

'What are you doing?Idiotically plunging at your own sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?' asked Mr.Idle, in a highlypetulant state.

'The One old man!' cried Mr.Goodchild, distractedly, - 'and the Two old men!'

Mr.Idle deigned no other reply than 'The One old woman, I think you mean,' as he began hobbling his way back up the staircase, with the assistance of its broad balustrade.

'I assure you, Tom,' began Mr.Goodchild, attending at his side, 'that since you fell asleep - '

'Come, I like that!' said Thomas Idle, 'I haven't closed an eye!'

With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the disgraceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of all mankind, Mr.Idle persisted in this declaration.The same peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr.Goodchild, on being taxed with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable resentment.The settlement of the question of The One old man and The Two old men was thus presently complicated, and soon made quite impracticable.Mr.Idle said it was all Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of things seen and thought about in the day.Mr.Goodchild said how could that be, when he hadn't been asleep, and what right could Mr.Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr.Idle said he had never been asleep, and never did go to sleep, and that Mr.Goodchild, as a general rule, was always asleep.They consequently parted for the rest of the night, at their bedroom doors, a little ruffled.Mr.Goodchild's last words were, that he had had, in that real and tangible old sitting-room of that real and tangible old Inn (he supposed Mr.Idle denied its existence?), every sensation and experience, the present record of which is now within a line or two of completion; and that he would write it out and print it every word.Mr.Idle returned that he might if he liked - and he did like, and has now done it.