were silent. Then Tom, playing with a subject that
attracted him with a fatal fascination, repeated, "All day long they
lie--still as the grave."

Teddy took the point at last. "Don't they lie o' nights?" he asked.

Old Tom shook his head. "Nobody knows, boy, nobody knows."

"But what could they do?"

"Nobody knows. Nobody ain't seen to tell not nobody."

"Nobody?"

"They tell tales," said old Tom. "They tell tales, but there ain't no
believing 'em. I gets 'ome about sundown, and keeps indoors, so I can't
say nothing, can I? But there's them that thinks some things and them as
thinks others. I've 'eard it's unlucky to take clo'es off of 'em unless
they got white bones. There's stories--"

The boy watched his uncle sharply. "WOT stories?" he said.

"Stories of moonlight nights and things walking about. But I take no
stock in 'em. I keeps in bed. If you listen to stories--Lord! You'll get
afraid of yourself in a field at midday."

The little boy looked round and ceased his questions for a space.

"They say there's a 'og man in Beck'n'am what was lost in London three
days and three nights. 'E went up after whiskey to Cheapside, and lorst
'is way among the ruins and wandered. Three days and three nights 'e
wandered about and the streets kep' changing so's he couldn't get 'ome.
If 'e 'adn't remembered some words out of the Bible 'e might 'ave been
there now. All day 'e went and all night--and all day long it was still.
It was as still as death all day long, until the sunset came and the
twilight thickened, and then it began to rustle and whisper and go
pit-a-pat with a sound like 'urrying feet."

He paused.

"Yes," said the little boy breathlessly. "Go on. What then?"

"A sound of carts and 'orses there was, and a sound of cabs and
omnibuses, and then a lot of whistling, shrill whistles, whistles that
froze 'is marrer. And directly the whistles began things begun to show,
people in the streets 'urrying, people in the 'ouses and shops busying
themselves, moty cars in the streets, a sort of moonlight in all the
lamps and winders. People, I say, Teddy, but they wasn't people. They
was the ghosts of them that was overtook, the ghosts of them that used
to crowd those streets. And they went past 'im and through 'im and never
'eeded 'im, went by like fogs and vapours, Teddy. And sometimes they
was cheerful and sometimes they was 'orrible, 'orrible beyond words. And
once 'e come to a place called Piccadilly, Teddy, an