"It is just possible that my ghosts have lost their way in this bewildering place and have strolled in to you, by mistake," I suggested.
"You don't happen to have seen any since you came here?"
"I only came last night."
"And you didn't see one?"
"No! Do I look as if I had?"
"Not the ghost of a terrified man, for instance, flying up in bed?"
"Good gracious, no! Why?"
"I thought you might have done," he said, and went on with his breakfast.
You'll say he talked such nonsense to get me to look at him, Berthalina; and of course I did. He has not the appearance of a seer of ghosts: a huge, heavy man, with a hump on a big, characterful nose; a powerful jaw, and very quick, blue eyes beneath shaggy eyebrows. The talk of ghosts seemed out of place on such firm lips.
"Was your ghost that of a terrified man, etc.?" I asked him, in spite of myself.