he other hotel."

When I said that, I supposed Greenton was a village with a population of
at least three or four thousand and was wondering vaguely at the absence
of lights and other signs of human habitation. Surely, I thought, all
the people cannot be abed and asleep at half past ten o'clock: perhaps I
am in the business section of the town, among the shops.

"You jest wait," said the voice above.

This request was not devoid of a certain accent of menace, and I braced
myself for a sortie on the part of the besieged, if he had any such
hostile intent. Presently a door opened at the very place where I least
expected a door, at the farther end of the building, in fact, and a man
in his shirtsleeves, shielding a candle with his left hand, appeared on
the threshold. I passed quickly into the house, with Mr. Tobias Sewell
(for this was Mr. Sewell) at my heels, and found myself in a long,
low-studded bar-room.

There were two chairs drawn up before the hearth, on which a huge
hemlock backlog was still smouldering, and on the un-painted deal
counter contiguous stood two cloudy glasses with bits of lemon-peel in
the bottom, hinting at recent libations. Against the discolored wall
over the bar hung a yellowed handbill, in a warped frame, announcing
that "the Next Annual N. H. Agricultural Fair" would take place on the
10th of September, 1841. There was no other furniture or decoration in
this dismal apartment, except the cobwebs which festooned the ceiling,
hanging down here and there like stalactites.

Mr. Sewell set the candlestick on the mantel-shelf, and threw some
pine-knots on the fire, which immediately broke into a blaze, and
showed him to be a lank, narrow-chested man, past sixty, with sparse,
steel-gray hair, and small, deep-set eyes, perfectly round, like a
fish's, and of no particular color. His chief personal characteristics
seemed to be too much feet and not enough teeth. His sharply cut,
but rather simple face, as he turned it towards me, wore a look
of interrogation. I replied to his mute inquiry by taking out my
pocket-book and handing him my business-card, which he held up to the
candle and perused with great deliberation.

"You 're a civil engineer, are you?" he said, displaying his gums, which
gave his countenance an expression of almost infantile innocence.
He made no further audible remark, but mumbled between his thin lips
something which an imaginative person might have construed into "If you
'r