Another odd circumstance impressed itself on their attention. It was, that the door of their sitting-room was never left untouched for a quarter of an hour. It was opened with hesitation, opened with confidence, opened a little way, opened a good way,—always clapped-to again without a word of explanation. They were reading, they were writing, they were eating, they were drinking, they were talking, they were dozing; the door was always opened at an unexpected moment, and they looked towards it, and it was clapped-to again, and nobody was to be seen. When this had happened fifty times or so, Mr. Goodchild had said to his companion, jestingly: ‘I begin to think, Tom, there was something wrong with those six old men.’ Night had come again, and they had been writing for two or three hours: writing, in short, a portion of the lazy notes from which these lazy sheets are taken. They had left off writing, and glasses were on the table between them. The house was closed and quiet. Around the head of Thomas Idle, as he lay upon his sofa, hovered light wreaths of fragrant smoke. The temples of Francis Goodchild, as he leaned back in his chair, with his two hands clasped behind his head, and his legs crossed, were similarly decorated. They had been discussing several idle subjects of speculation, not omitting the strange old men, and were still so occupied, when Mr. Goodchild abruptly changed his attitude to wind up his watch. They were just becoming drowsy enough to be stopped in their talk by any such slight check. Thomas Idle, who was speaking at the moment, paused and said, ‘How goes it?’ ‘One,’ said Goodchild. As if he had ordered One old man, and the order were promptly executed (truly, all orders were so, in that excellent hotel), the door opened, and One old man stood there. He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand. ‘One of the six, Tom, at last!’ said Mr. Goodchild, in a surprised whisper.—‘Sir, your pleasure?’ ‘Sir, _your_ pleasure?’ said the One old man. ‘I didn’t ring.’ ‘The bell did,’ said the One old man. He said BELL, in a deep, strong way, that would have expressed the church Bell. ‘I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, yesterday?’ said Goodchild. ‘I cannot undertake to say for certain,’ was the grim reply of the One old man. ‘I think you saw me? Did you not?’ ‘Saw _you_?’ said the old man. ‘O yes, I saw you. But, I see many who never see me.’ A chilled, slow, earthy, fixed old man. A cadaverous old man of measured speech. An old man who seemed as unable to wink, as if his eyelids had been nailed to his forehead. An old man whose eyes—two spots of fire—had no more motion than if they had been connected with the back of his skull by screws driven through it, and rivetted and bolted outside, among his grey hair. The night had turned so cold, to Mr. Goodchild’s sensations, that he shivered. He remarked lightly, and half apologetically, ‘I think somebody is walking over my grave.’