im not to have had some preliminary acquaintance with
Sir David--in most cases he found that so important. But the present
sitter was so far advanced in life that there was doubtless no time to
lose. 'Oh, I can tell you all about him,' said Mr. Ashmore; and for half
an hour he told him a good deal. It was very interesting as well as very
eulogistic, and Lyon could see that he was a very nice old man, to have
endeared himself so to a son who was evidently not a gusher. At last he
got up--he said he must go to bed if he wished to be fresh for his work
in the morning. To which his host replied, 'Then you must take your
candle; the lights are out; I don't keep my servants up.'

In a moment Lyon had his glimmering taper in hand, and as he was leaving
the room (he did not disturb the others with a good-night; they were
absorbed in the lemon-squeezer and the soda-water cork) he remembered
other occasions on which he had made his way to bed alone through a
darkened country-house; such occasions had not been rare, for he was
almost always the first to leave the smoking-room. If he had not stayed
in houses conspicuously haunted he had, none the less (having the
artistic temperament), sometimes found the great black halls and
staircases rather 'creepy': there had been often a sinister effect, to
his imagination, in the sound of his tread in the long passages or the
way the winter moon peeped into tall windows on landings. It occurred to
him that if houses without supernatural pretensions could look so wicked
at night, the old corridors of Stayes would certainly give him a
sensation. He didn't know whether the proprietors were sensitive; very
often, as he had said to Colonel Capadose, people enjoyed the
impeachment. What determined him to speak, with a certain sense of the
risk, was the impression that the Colonel told queer stories. As he had
his hand on the door he said to Arthur Ashmore, 'I hope I shan't meet
any ghosts.'

'Any ghosts?'

'You ought to have some--in this fine old part.'

'We do our best, but _que voulez-vous_?' said Mr. Ashmore. 'I don't
think they like the hot-water pipes.'

'They remind them too much of their own climate? But haven't you a
haunted room--at the end of my passage?'

'Oh, there are stories--we try to keep them up.'

'I should like very much to sleep there,' Lyon said.

'Well, you can move there to-morrow if you like.'

'Perhaps I had better wait till I have done my work.'

'Very good;