Squabbling with flesh and blood is not a bad
preliminary to entering a ghost-haunted house.
Once again I was at River Hall. Looking up at its cheerless portal, I
was amazed at first to see the outside lamp flaring away in the
darkness. Then I remembered that all the other gas being out, of course
this, which I had not turned off, would blaze more brightly.
Purposely I had left my return till rather late. I had gone to one of
the theatres, and remained until a third through the principal piece.
Then I called at a supper-room, had half a dozen oysters and some stout;
after which, like a giant refreshed, I wended my way westward.
Utterly false would it be for me to say I liked the idea of entering the
Uninhabited House; but still, I meant to do it, and I did.
No law-books for me that night; no seductive fire; no shining lights all
over the house. Like a householder of twenty years' standing, I struck a
match, and turned the gas on to a single hall-lamp. I did not trouble
myself even about shutting the doors opening into the hall; I only
strewed flour copiously over the marble pavement, and on the first
flight of stairs, and then, by the servant's passages, crept into the
upper story, and so to bed.
That night I slept dreamlessly.
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