The gloom that now prevailed was contagious. Around hung the shapeless and almost spectral box-coats of departed travellers, long since buried in deep sleep. I only heard the ticking of the clock, with the deep-drawn breathing of the sleeping toper, and the dripping of the rain, drop—drop—drop, from the eaves of the house. The church bells chimed midnight. All at once the Stout Gentleman began to walk overhead, pacing slowly backwards and forwards. There was something extremely awful in all this—especially to me in my state of nerves. These ghastly great-coats, these guttural breathings, and the creaking footsteps of the mysterious being. His steps grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. I could bear it no longer; I was wound up to the desperation of a hero of romance. “Be he who or what he may,” said I to myself, “I’ll have a sight of him!” I seized a chamber candle and hurried up to No. 13. The door stood ajar. I hesitated—I entered—the room was deserted. There stood a large, broad-bottomed elbow-chair at a table, on which was an empty tumbler and a _Times_ newspaper, and the room smelt powerfully of Stilton cheese. The mysterious stranger had evidently but just retired. I turned off to my room sorely disappointed. As I went along the corridor I saw a large pair of boots, with dirty, waxed tops, standing at the door of a bed-chamber. They doubtless belonged to the unknown; but it would not do to disturb so redoubtable a personage in his den; he might discharge a pistol or something worse at my head. I went to bed therefore, and lay awake half the night in a terribly nervous state; and even when I fell asleep I was still haunted in my dreams by the idea of the Stout Gentleman and his wax-topped boots. I slept rather late the next morning, and was awakened by some stir and bustle in the house, which I could not at first comprehend; until getting more awake, I found there was a mail coach starting from the door. Suddenly there was a cry from below: “The gentleman has forgot his umbrella; look for the gentleman’s umbrella in No. 13.” I heard an immediate scamper of a chambermaid along the passage, and a shrill reply, as she ran, “Here it is! here’s the gentleman’s umbrella!” [Illustration: “THAT WAS ALL I EVER SAW OF THE STOUT GENTLEMAN.”] The mysterious stranger then was on the point of setting off. This was the only chance I should ever have of knowing him. I sprang out of bed, scrambled to the window, snatched aside the curtains, and just caught a glimpse of the rear of a person getting in at the coach-door. The skirts of a brown coat parted behind, and gave me a full view of the broad disc of a pair of drab breeches. The door closed. “All right,” was the word; the coach whirled off—and that was all I ever saw of the Stout Gentleman. _Washington Irving._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------