tables, and lost voices laugh and wail and
sing low to themselves through its halls--they would probably take one
for a lunatic--a servant of the moon.

Certainly, to all appearance, few places would seem less to suggest the
word "haunted" than that restaurant, as one comes upon it, in one of the
busiest of London thoroughfares, spreading as it does for blocks around,
like a conflagration, the festive glare of its electrically emblazoned
facade. Yet no ruined mansion, with the moon shining in through its
shattered roof, the owl nesting in its banqueting hall, and the snake
gliding through its bed chambers, was ever more peopled with phantoms
than this radiant palace of prandial gaiety, apparently filled with the
festive murmur of happy diners, the jocund strains of its vigorous
orchestra, the subdued clash of knives and forks and delicate dishes,
the rustle of women's gowns and the fairy music of women's voices. For
me its portico, flaming like a vortex of dizzy engulfing light, upon
which, as upon a swift current, gay men and women, alighting from motor
and hansom, are swept inward to glittering tables of snow-white napery,
fair with flowers--for me the mouth of the grave is not less dread,
and the walls of a sepulchre are not so painted with dead faces
or so inscribed with elegiac memories. I could spend a night in
Pere-la-Chaise, and still be less aware of the presence of the dead
than I was a short time ago, when, greatly daring, I crossed with a
shudder that once so familiar threshold.

It was twelve years since I had been in London, so I felt no little of a
ghost myself, and I knew too well that it would be vain to look for the
old faces. Yes, gone was the huge good-natured commissionaire, who so
often in the past, on my arrival in company with some human flower, had
flung open the apron of our cab with such reverential alacrity, and on
our departure had so gently tucked in the petals of her skirts, smiling
the while a respectfully knowing benediction on the prospective
continuance of our evening's adventure. Another stood in his place, and
watched my lonely arrival with careless indifference. Glancing through
the window of the treasurer's office to the right of the hall, I could
see that an unfamiliar figure sat at the desk, where in the past so many
a cheque had been cashed for me with eager _bonhomie_. Now I reflected
that considerable identification would be necessary for that once
light-hearted transaction.