"Why, sir," said Mrs. Rapkin, running her hand nervously along the back of a chair, "the fact is, something come over me, and come over Rapkin, as we couldn't stop here another minute not if it was ever so." "Ah!" said Horace, raising his eyebrows, "restlessness--eh, Mrs. Rapkin? Awkward that it should come on just then, though, wasn't it?" "It was the look of the place, somehow," said Mrs. Rapkin. "If you'll believe me, sir, it was all changed like--nothing in it the same from top to bottom!" "Really?" said Horace. "I don't notice any difference myself." "No more don't I, sir, not by daylight; but last night it was all domes and harches and marble fountings let into the floor, with parties moving about downstairs all silent and as black as your hat--which Rapkin saw them as well as what I did." "From the state your husband was in last night," said Horace, "I should say he was capable of seeing anything--and double of most things." "I won't deny, sir, that Rapkin mayn't have been quite hisself, as a very little upsets him after he's spent an afternoon studying the papers and what-not at the libery. But I see the niggers too, Mr. Ventimore, and no one can say _I_ ever take more than is good for me." "I don't suggest that for a moment, Mrs. Rapkin," said Horace; "only, if the house was as you describe last night, how do you account for its being all right this morning?" Mrs. Rapkin in her embarrassment was reduced to folding her apron into small pleats. "It's not for me to say, sir," she replied, "but, if I was to give my opinion, it would be as them parties as called 'ere on camels the other day was at the bottom of it." "I shouldn't wonder if you were right, Mrs. Rapkin," said Horace blandly; "you see, you had been exerting yourself over the cooking, and no doubt were in an over-excited state, and, as you say, those camels had taken hold of your imagination until you were ready to see anything that Rapkin saw, and _he_ was ready to see anything _you_ did. It's not at all uncommon. Scientific people, I believe, call it 'Collective Hallucination.'" "Law, sir!" said the good woman, considerably impressed by this diagnosis, "you don't mean to say I had _that_? I was always fanciful from a girl, and could see things in coffee-grounds as nobody else could--but I never was took like that before. And to think of me leaving my dinner half cooked, and you expecting your young lady and her pa and ma! Well, _there_, now, I _am_ sorry. Whatever did you do, sir?" "We managed to get food of sorts from somewhere," said Horace, "but it was most uncomfortable for me, and I trust, Mrs. Rapkin--I sincerely trust that it will not occur again." "That I'll answer for it shan't, sir. And you won't take no notice to Rapkin, sir, will you? Though it was his seein' the niggers and that as put it into my 'ed; but I 'ave spoke to him pretty severe already, and he's truly sorry and ashamed for forgetting hisself as he did."