"Go on. I won't."
"Well, you know we had a pretty good fire here, as we have now; and as twelve o'clock went ding-dong by old St. Dunstan's, we thought it was time to have some sleep, and you lay down on the sofa, saying as you could see by the fire light, while I took the candle to go up stairs to bed with, you know—old Todd's bed, I suppose it is, on the second-floor, and rather damp and thin, you know."
"Goodness, gracious! tell me something I don't know, will you? Do you want to drive a fellow out of his mind?"
"Well—well, don't be hasty! I'm getting on. I took the light, and shading it with one hand, for there's always a furious draught upon the stairs of this house; up I went, thinking of nothing at all. Well, in course, I had to pass the first-floor, which is shut up, you know, and has all sorts of things in it."
"Yes; go on—go on!"
"Is it interesting?"
"It is; only you go on. I'll warrant now it's a ghost you are coming to."
"No, it ain't; but don't percipitate, and you shall hear all about it. Let me see, where was I?—Oh, on the first-floor landing: But, as I say, I was thinking of nothing at all, when, all of a sudden, I heard a very odd kind of noise in the front room of the first-floor."
"I wonder you didn't fall headlong down stairs with fright, candle and all."
"No, I didn't. It sounded like the murmur of people talking a long way off. Then I began to think it must be in the next house; and I thought of going up to bed, and paying no attention to it, and I did get up two or three steps of the second-floor stairs, but still I heard it; and it got such a hold of my mind, do you know, that I couldn't leave it, but down I went again, and listened. I thought of coming to you; but, somehow, I didn't do so."