“Will you give me a shakedown on your lounge till morning?” he asked. “Mrs. Seeley evidently thought I was going to make a night of it, and she has put some one into my room.”
Antrim made haste to be hospitable, but he looked mystified.
“Surely. But I don’t understand that a little bit. It isn’t at all like Mrs. Seeley.”
“No; it is rather odd.”
“I should say so. Are you sure there is somebody there?”
“On the evidence of two separate senses. I struck a match and saw a man in my bed; and besides that—listen.” The subdued murmur of the intruder’s snoring was quite audible, and Brant went on: “Moreover, to add to the oddness of it, the man has been drinking. The room reeks like a pothouse.”
“Well, that is queer,” mused Antrim; and then: “Maybe it is one of the boys gone wrong and couldn’t find his room. But in that case I can’t imagine who it could be.”
“Nor I,” rejoined Brant, stretching himself wearily on the lounge. “Never mind; we’ll find out all about it in the morning.”
So he said, and fell asleep; but the morning event discredited the confident assertion. When they went down together to a late breakfast and mentioned the matter to Mrs. Seeley, the good lady was quite as astonished as her lodgers had been. Moreover, she was touched in a tender part, and her inn-keeping pride resented the imputation put upon it by Brant’s suggestion.
“Put any one in your room? Why, Mr. Brant! to think you would suspect me of doing such a thing! Why, never in all my born days did I——”