“The terms of the bet,” said Quillier, “are that this candle must suffice you for the night. That is understood?” “Sure, why not?” smiled the gentleman from America. “It’s a bum bet, and it looks to me like a bum candle. But do I care? No, sir!” “Further,” continued the impersonal, pleasant voice, “that you are allowed no matches, and therefore cannot relight the candle when it has gone out. That if you can pass the night in that room, Kerr-Anderson and I pay you five hundred pounds. And _vice versa_.” “That’s all right, Quillier. We’ve got all that.” The gentleman from America took the candle from Quillier’s hand and looked into the room, but with no more than faint interest. In that faulty light little could be seen but the oak panelling, the heavy hangings about the great bed, and a steel engraving of a Meissonier duellist lunging at them from a wall nearby. “Seldom,” said he, “have I seen a room look less haunted----” “Ah,” vaguely said Sir Cyril Quillier. “But,” said the gentleman from America, “since you and Kerr-Anderson insist on presenting me with five hundred pounds for passing the night in it, do I complain? No, sir!” “Got your revolver?” queried young Kerr-Anderson, a chubby youth whose profession was dining out. “That is so,” said the gentleman from America. Quillier said: “Well, Puce; I don’t mind telling you that I had just as soon this silly business was over. I have been betting all my life, but I have always had a preference for those bets which did not turn on a man’s life or death----” “Say, listen, Quillier, you can’t frighten me with that junk!” snapped Mr. Puce. “My aunt,” said young Kerr-Anderson, “will be very annoyed if anything happens and she gets to hear of it. She hates a corpse in her house more than anyone I know. You’re sure you are going on with it, Puce?” “Boy, if Abraham Lincoln was to come up this moment and tell me Queen Anne was dead I’d be as sure he was speaking the truth as that I’m going to spend this night in this old haunted room of your aunt’s. Yes, sir! And now I’ll give you good-night, boys. Warn your mothers to be ready to give you five hundred pounds to hand on to Howard Cornelius Puce.” “I like Americans,” said Quillier vaguely. “They are so enthusiastic. Good-night, Puce, and God bless you. I hope you have better luck than the last man who spent a night in that room. He was strangled. Good-night, my friend.” “Aw, have a heart!” growled Mr. Puce. “You get a guy so low with your talk that I feel I could put on a tall hat and crawl under a snake.” II