At the garage, which aforetime had been a stable, he engaged in back-stairs gossip with Frank Dominick, the chauffeur—in the presence of the gardener, John Hart, an uncommunicative person—and learned that both were preparing to “give notice.”
“We ain’t actually seen old Clayberg’s ghost—at least not yet,” said Dominick, “but we’ve heard enough about ’im and I guess he’ll be callin’ on us next. I guess the only reason we ain’t seen ’im before is because we sleep up there,” pointing to the upper floor of the garage. “Take my advice, friend, and don’t stay here over night. Am I right, John?”
John Hart, a senile man, shifted his cud of tobacco and expectorated lavishly, thus contributing a fresh stain to his ragged white beard.
“You’re right,” said he, and spoke no more.
Returning to the house, Barry was given a white jacket and a pair of blue trousers by Mrs. Peyton; and at six o’clock, wearing these garments and a servile mien, he was laying the dinner table when the master of the house arrived. Barry, with a plate and napkin in his hands, observed him through the doorway—a trim-looking man of thirty-five—and remarked the harrowing fear that sat upon his countenance.
His haggard eyes, like those of his wife, denoted loss of sleep; and he evinced no interest in her “luck in finding two perfect servants.” In the same troubled preoccupation, he acknowledged the introduction of Barry, who was presented as Thomas Field. Clearly, he was too frightened and worried to be conscious of his environment.
Dinner over, Barry went to his room. It was a tiny chamber tucked under the eaves at the rear of the top floor, and it was here that his predecessor had beheld the “apparition” night before last. Upon the small table, where the word, “LEAVE” had been spelled with matches, Barry spread the articles which he had bought this afternoon.
Then he drew the table to the window, and lighted the lamp, and sat down and began writing letters to mythical persons in Iowa. His door stood open, and so did the window, and anybody passing in the hall, or standing north of the house, could have watched him at his employment.
For upward of two hours he sat steadily writing, his back to the door, his face silhouetted against the window; and when he had written five letters, and had stamped and directed them to his imaginary correspondents, he uncorked the mucilage pot and sealed the flaps of the envelops.
And then, somehow, he awkwardly upset the bottle of mucilage, and the stuff oozed stickily over his pencil and paper.