"Why, who else should I sit with? And a man like me never sits alone. Bless your heart, young gentleman, of a morning when I sit before the fire and smoke a pipe, this room gets full of people. They crowd in, they do. Dead people, I mean, of course. I know more dead men than living. They're the best company, after all. Bob Coppin comes, for one."
Harry began to look about, wondering whether the ghost of Bob might suddenly appear at the door. On the whole he envied the old man his company of departed friends.
"So you talk," he said; "you and the dead people?" By this time the old man had got into his chair and Harry stood in the doorway, for there really was not room for more than one in the house at the same time, to say nothing of inconveniencing and crowding the merry company of ghosts.
"You wouldn't believe," said the old man, "the talks we have nor the yarns we spin, when we're here together."
"It must be a jovial time," said Harry. "Do they drink?"
Mr. Maliphant screwed up his lips and shook his head mysteriously.
"Not of a morning," he replied, as if in the evening the old rollicking customs were still kept up.
"And you talk about old times—eh?"
"There's nothing else to talk about, as I know."