"Mr. Bautte, as I have mentioned, was a watchmaker; and though very rich, still attended to his trade, so that it was easy to obtain an interview with him. Mr. Colman called at his place of business, which was not a shop, but a room on the first floor of a private house. He asked about the engraving of a seal that he had to his watch-chain; and then, having ascertained which was Mr. B., he told him he was his tenant. Mr. B. bowed and said, 'I hope you like the house, sir.'
"My grandfather said that, perhaps, he might not have observed it but for what had happened, but that he fancied this was said with a sort of misgiving, as if he was conscious that there was something objectionable about the house.
"'Why,' said my grandfather, drawing him rather aside, 'I like the house very much; but there's one great inconvenience about it—we can't get any servants to stay with us. One has left us already, and the others have given us warning, and nobody seems willing to come in their places. I understand you lived in the house yourself a short time; may I ask if you found any similar difficulty?'
"'Well, sir,' said Mr. Bautte, trying to look unconcerned, 'you are aware how ignorant and foolish such people are—I fancy from the construction of the house that the sounds from the next door penetrate the walls.'
"'We hear no sounds,' said Mr. Colman. 'I have heard no complaints of any. Did any of your family ever say they saw anything extraordinary there?'
"'Well, sir, since you put the question so directly, I can't deny that the female part of my family did assert something of the sort; but women have generally a tendency to superstition, and are easily terrified.'
"'Very true,' said Mr. Colman, 'but I should take it as a great favour if you would tell me what they said they saw—I have no idea of leaving the house; you need not be afraid of that; and of course I shall not mention this conversation to any one—what did they say they saw?'
"Mr. Bautte thus exhorted, confessed that his family, and everybody who had lived in the house, asserted that they had seen the apparition of a young man in uniform, who always appeared on the stairs or the landing; adding, that he himself had never seen it, although he had put himself in the way of it repeatedly, and he firmly believed it was some extraordinary delusion or optical deception, though it was impossible to account for its affecting so many persons in the same way.
"My grandfather then told him what had occurred in his family; especially to his eldest daughter, in whose testimony, he assured Mr. Bautte, he placed the greatest reliance; and he ventured to propose an examination of the spot, where the figure was said invariably to disappear. At first, Mr. Bautte laughed at the idea; for—besides his scepticism, which made him unwilling to take any proceeding that countenanced what he considered an absurd superstition—he urged, that the staircase and landing in question, were of very recent erection, being one of Mr. Zwengler's improvements when he repaired the house. However, after a short argument, wherein my grandfather represented that nobody but the parties concerned need know the real reason for what they did, that the expense would be small, and the possible result beneficial to the property, Mr. Bautte consented, provided Mr. Geierstecke made no objection; he being still the owner of the house.
"Mr. G., who, you know, was my husband's father, was aware that the Hôtel du Pont had frequently changed its tenants, but was quite ignorant of the cause. He had no immediate interest in the matter, as Mr. Bautte held a thirty-years lease, and he naturally assumed that these frequent changes were purely accidental. Everybody, who became acquainted with the house, had a strong motive for keeping the secret; for—besides the ridicule and penalty they might have incurred—they all wanted to get it off their hands. It's true, that amongst the servants and common people of the neighbourhood, there were strange whispers going about; the source of which it would not have been easy to trace. A glazier said he knew a man, who had heard another declare, that he was acquainted with a bricklayer, who had helped to build the staircase; who used to say, he did not wonder that nobody could live in the Hôtel du Pont; and that it was his opinion that nobody ever would be able to live in it; and a woman who kept a shop opposite, had been heard to say, that she saw somebody go into that house that never came out again; but whenever she alluded to this subject, her husband always reproved her, and told her she did not know what she was talking about.