"What bee has got into your bonnet?"
"Don't call it that. It's a conviction, Tom. Do be guided by me, old chap!"
The sailor flushed a little, emptied his glass, and rose.
"If you really wanted to choke me off, you chose a funny way to do so. Surely it only needed this to determine anybody. If you, as a sane person, honestly believe there's a pinch of danger in that blessed place, then I certainly sleep there to-night, or else wake there."
"Let me come, too, then, Tom."
"That be damned for a yarn! Ghosts don't show up for two people—haven't got pluck enough. If I get any sport, I'll be quite straight about it, and you shall try your luck to-morrow."
"I can only make it a favor; and not for your own sake, either."
"I know. Mary will be sleeping the sleep of the just in the next room. How little she'll guess! Perhaps, if I see an apparition worthy of the Golden Age, I'll call her up."
"Do oblige me, May."
"In anything on earth but this thing. It's really too late now. Don't you see you've defeated your own object? You mustn't ask me to throw up the sponge to your sudden intuition of danger sprung on me at the eleventh hour. I won the toss, and can't take my orders from you, old chap, can I?"