cussed the credits of different merchants and
different inns; and the two wags told several choice anecdotes of
pretty chamber-maids, and kind landladies. All this passed as they
were quietly taking what they called their night-caps, that is to say,
strong glasses of brandy and water and sugar, or some other mixture of
the kind; after which they one after another rang for "Boots" and the
chamber-maid, and walked off to bed in old shoes cut down into
marvellously uncomfortable slippers.

There was only one man left; a short-legged, long-bodied, plethoric
fellow, with a very large, sandy head. He sat by himself, with a glass
of port wine negus, and a spoon; sipping and stirring, and meditating
and sipping, until nothing was left but the spoon. He gradually fell
asleep bolt upright in his chair, with the empty glass standing before
him; and the candle seemed to fall asleep too, for the wick grew long,
and black, and cabbaged at the end, and dimmed the little light that
remained in the chamber. The gloom that now prevailed was contagious.
Around hung the shapeless, and almost spectral, box-coats of departed
travellers, long since buried in deep sleep. I only heard the ticking
of the clock, with the deep-drawn breathings of the sleeping topers,
and the drippings of the rain, drop--drop--drop, from the eaves of the
house. The church-bells chimed midnight. All at once the stout
gentleman began to walk overhead, pacing slowly backwards and
forwards. There was something extremely awful in all this, especially
to one in my state of nerves. These ghastly greatcoats, these guttural
breathings, and the creaking footsteps of this mysterious being. His
steps grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. I could bear
it no longer. I was wound up to the desperation of a hero of romance.
"Be he who or what he may," said I to myself, "I'll have a sight of
him!" I seized a chamber candle, and hurried up to number 13. The door
stood ajar. I hesitated--I entered: the room was deserted. There stood
a large, broad-bottomed elbow chair at a table, on which was an empty
tumbler, and a "Times" newspaper, and the room smelt powerfully of
Stilton cheese.

The mysterious stranger had evidently but just retired. I turned off,
sorely disappointed, to my room, which had been changed to the front
of the house. As I went along the corridor, I saw a large pair of
boots, with dirty, waxed tops, standing at the door of a bed-chamber.
They doubtless b