Upon a block of stone above the wide entrance there were cut, in letters so weather-worn as to be scarcely legible, these words: "The Unbelieving Thomas, 1534." From this, the street had been christened Thomas Lane--a title which it still bears, though, only in official documents and on the map of the city. In common parlance it had been known for more than fifty years as "Ghosts' Lane"--again because of that same ancient building which was responsible for its correct name. For every one knew that the house of "The Unbelieving Thomas" was haunted; and even the most cold-blooded free-thinkers of the town could not escape a slight shiver when business forced them to tread the neglected pavement of this street.
Why this old three-storied structure, so firm despite its great age, had been inhabited all these years only by poor unabsolved souls, no one could tell. With one man who had had the hardihood to purchase the house, things had turned out badly enough. A Jew, to whom the great, empty rooms seemed suitable for a warehouse, had been established there less than two years, when one morning he was found with a bit of silk stuff twisted about his neck, hanging from the crosspiece of a window in the largest room. And it subsequently became evident that Fortune had turned her back upon this man, once prosperous and well-to-do, and there was nothing for him but to steal out of the world and leave his accumulation of debts behind him.
Nothing save the house itself and its dusty furnishings remained to the creditors; and as no purchaser appeared, they were forced to vent their chagrin in fierce glances at the gray, weather-beaten sign over the door, upon which, in huge black lettering, was the name of the firm: "Commission and Dispatch House of Moritz Feigenbaum."
Now, although the whole house was so securely bolted and barred that it would have been impossible for a thief to carry anything out of it, the court deemed it necessary to provide for some oversight of the place, so that no lovers of darkness, counterfeiters or bands of dynamiters should take refuge there. Fortunately, there happened to be a poor cobbler, whose little house had been destroyed by a flood, and who declared himself willing to undertake the duties of janitor. This valiant person--Wenzel Kospoth by name, an emigrant from Bohemia--took possession of the porter's room by the entrance without further delay, regarding this free shelter as a sufficient recompense for his services, which were simple enough.
He had to open the great, black, outer door each morning, and to close it again at night; and now and then he took a survey of the three stories to see that no bulging wall threatened the downfall of the whole. The entire day he was free to devote to his small custom, which remained true to him, even in the haunted house; although certain anxious good wives had scruples about venturing across the threshold to get a pair of defective boots mended in this unwholesome atmosphere.
For, in fact, honest Wenzel Kospoth, with his bony, grizzled face and small, black eyes, deep-set under their bushy brows, did not seem quite canny to his new neighbors, hardened though they were to the traditions of the street.