“Good-night, Dan.”
“Good-night, Johnny. I hope I shall get to sleep.”
He put his head under the bedclothes as I went away with the candle. I was not long getting into bed either. The stars were bright in the sky.
Before there was time to get to sleep, Dan came bursting in, shivering as on the past night, and asking to be let get into the bed. I did not mind his being in the bed—liked it rather, for company—but I did think it a great stupid pity that he should be giving way to these superstitious fears as though he were a girl.
“Look here, Dan: I should be above it. One of the smallest of those Frogs couldn’t show out more silly than this.”
“He’s in my bed again, Johnny. Lying down. I can’t sleep there another night.”
“You know that he is below in his coffin—with the room-door locked.”
“I don’t care—he’s there in the bed. You had no sooner gone with the light than King crept in and lay down beside me. He used to have a way of putting his left arm over me outside the clothes, and he put it so to-night.”
“Dan!”
“I tell you he did. Nobody would believe it, but he did. I felt it like a weight. It was heavy, just as dead arms are. Johnny, if this goes on, I shall die. Have you heard what mamma says?”