man. Give me
another cup of tea, Meagle."

"Lester and White are first," said Meagle, who was presiding at the
tea-table of the Three Feathers Inn. "You've had two."

Lester and White finished their cups with irritating slowness, pausing
between sips to sniff the aroma, and to discover the sex and dates of
arrival of the "strangers" which floated in some numbers in the beverage.
Mr. Meagle served them to the brim, and then, turning to the grimly
expectant Mr. Barnes, blandly requested him to ring for hot water.

"We'll try and keep your nerves in their present healthy condition," he
remarked. "For my part I have a sort of half-and-half belief in the
super-natural."

"All sensible people have," said Lester. "An aunt of mine saw a ghost
once."

White nodded.

"I had an uncle that saw one," he said.

"It always is somebody else that sees them," said Barnes.

"Well, there is a house," said Meagle, "a large house at an absurdly low
rent, and nobody will take it. It has taken toll of at least one life of
every family that has lived there--however short the time--and since it
has stood empty caretaker after care-taker has died there. The last
caretaker died fifteen years ago."

"Exactly," said Barnes. "Long enough ago for legends to accumulate."

"I'll bet you a sovereign you won't spend the night there alone, for all
your talk," said White, suddenly.

"And I," said Lester.

"No," said Barnes slowly. "I don't believe in ghosts nor in any
supernatural things whatever; all the same I admit that I should not care
to pass a night there alone."

"But why not?" inquired White.

"Wind in the chimney," said Meagle with a grin.

"Rats in the wainscot," chimed in Lester. "As you like," said Barnes
coloring.

"Suppose we all go," said Meagle. "Start after supper, and get there
about eleven. We have been walking for ten days now without an
adventure--except Barnes's discovery that ditchwater smells longest. It
will be a novelty, at any rate, and, if we break the spell by all
surviving, the grateful owner ought to come down handsome."

"Let's see what the landlord has to say about it first," said Lester.
"There is no fun in passing a night in an ordinary empty house. Let us
make sure that it is haunted."

He rang the bell, and, sending for the landlord, appealed to him in the
name of our common humanity not to let them waste a night watching in a
house in which spectres and hobgoblins had no part. The