es stopping to
renew his apologies, and even appearing to grow confidentially
communicative regarding his domestic economies; until the hungry
traveller cut him short with "Don't say another word about it, my
friend; you have not a spare sleeping-room, and that is enough. Find me
a corner--a clean corner"--looking round upon the most unclean corners
of that room--"perhaps up-stairs somewhere, and----"

"Ah! _upsta'rs_, Gen'ral. Now, that's jest what I had in my mind to ax
you. Fact is ther' _is_ a spar' room upsta'rs, as comfortable a room as
the best of folks can wish; but----"

"But it's crammed with sleeping folks, so there's an end of it," cried
the senator, thoroughly bored.

"No, sir, ain't no person in it; and ther' ain't no person likely to be
in it 'cept 'tis _yerself_, Colonel Demarion. Leastways----"

After a good deal of hesitation and embarrassment, the host, in
mysterious whispers, imparted the startling fact that this most
desirable sleeping room was _haunted_; that the injury he had sustained
in consequence had compelled him to fasten it up altogether; that he had
come to be very suspicious of admitting strangers, and had limited his
custom of late to what the bar could supply, keeping the matter hushed
up in the hope that it might be the sooner forgotten by the neighbors;
but that in the case of Colonel Demarion he had now made bold to mention
it; "as I can't but think, sir," he urged, "you'd find it prefer'ble to
sleepin' on the floor or sittin' up all night along ov these loafers.
Fer if 'tis any deceivin' trick got up in the house, maybe they won't
try it on, sir, to a gentleman of your reputation."

Colonel Demarion became interested in the landlord's confidences, but
could only gather in further explanation that for some time past all
travellers who had occupied that room had "made off in the middle of the
night, never showin' their faces at the inn again;" that on endeavoring
to arrest one or more in their nocturnal flight, they--all more or less
terrified--had insisted on escaping without a moment's delay, assigning
no other reason than that they had seen a ghost. "Not that folks seem to
get much harm by it, Colonel--not by the way they makes off without
paying a cent of money!"

Great indeed was the satisfaction evinced by the victim of unpaid bills
on the Colonel's declaring that the haunted chamber was the very room
for him. "If to be turned out of my bed at midnight is all I have to
fe