"But, I tell you, you did."
"You may tell me as much as you like; but in the morning when I came down, there was the candle on the first-floor landing, just as I had dropped it. What do you think of that? Of course, after I drew out my head again from the first-floor front room I must have gone up stairs in the middle of my fright, and I dare say I fainted away, and didn't come to myself again till the morning."
"Oh, stuff! Don't try to make me believe in your ghost stories. If—if I thought it was true, I should bolt out of the house this minute."
"You would, really?"
"Yes, to be sure; is a fellow to stay in a place with his hair continually standing on end, I should like to know? Hardly. But it's all stuff. Take another drop of brandy! Now I tell you what, if you have the courage to go with me, I will take the light now and go up to the first-floor, and have a good look all about it! What do you say to that, now? Will you do it?"
"I don't much mind."
"Only say the word, and I am quite ready."
"Well, I will. If so be they are there, they won't do us any harm, for they took no more notice of me than as if I had been nothing at all. But how you do shake!"
"I shake? You never were more mistaken in all your life. It's you that's shaking, and that makes you think I am. You are shaking, if you please; and if you don't like the job of going up stairs, only say so; I won't press it upon you!"
"Oh, I'll go."