"Here, drink this!" he said roughly.
"Oh, David, how can you speak so?" sobbed his wife.
"I can't help it. I'm mad clean through," said David.
Then there was a hard bound upstairs, and George entered. He was very white, but he grinned at them with an appearance of unconcern.
"Hullo!" he said in a shaking voice, which he tried to control. "What on earth's to pay in that vacant lot now?"
"Well, what is it?" demanded his father.
"Oh, nothing, only—well, there are lights over it exactly as if there was a house there, just about where the windows would be. It looked as if you could walk right in, but when you look close there are those old dried-up weeds rattling away on the ground the same as ever. I looked at it and couldn't believe my eyes. A woman saw it, too. She came along just as I did. She gave one look, then she screeched and ran. I waited for some one else, but nobody came."
Mr. Townsend rushed out of the room.
"I daresay it'll be gone when he gets there," began George, then he stared round the room. "What's to pay here?" he cried.
"Oh, George, the whole house shook all at once, and all the looking-glasses broke," wailed his mother, and Adrianna and Cordelia joined.