Mr. Gooch went to the window. He was still shivering and he had a queer, unpleasant notion that his hair was wilting—a most astonishing sensation. He hesitated a moment, then boldly drew the curtains apart. The light from the arc light at the corner, fairly well-spent after traversing a couple of hundred feet, was of sufficient strength to flood the lawn with a dim radiance. A shadowy object half way down to the gate resolved itself into the figure of a man as Mr. Gooch gazed upon it with bewildered, incredulous eyes.
“Hello, Horace,” came wafting up to Mr. Gooch—apparently from this shadowy object. “That you? Say, open up and let me in.”
Mr. Gooch grasped the window frame for support.
“Good God!” he gulped, but in a voice so strange and hollow that he did not recognize it as his own. In a sudden panic he threw up the window and screeched—in an entirely different voice but equally as unrecognizable:
“Go away! Leave me alone!”
“Say, don’t you know who it is? It’s me.”
The figure drew nearer the house. At the same time Mr. Gooch stuck his head out of the window and bawled:
“Help! For God’s sake, somebody come and chase it away! Help!”
“What’s the matter with you, you darned old fool!” barked the indistinct visitor. “You’ll wake the dead, yelling like that.”
“Wake the dead!” repeated Mr. Gooch in a low, sepulchral voice.