Whereupon up we went, gathering sawdust on the soles of our shoes as we climbed the twisted staircase, past the kitchen (where The Pudding is cooked in a huge copper boiler which is kept going all night)--at this moment the fizzling, sputtering, steaming scene of a score of culinary activities--past a grandfather clock in the corner which is older than Dr. Johnson himself, and into the room where stands the original chair used by Dr. Johnson at the Mitre Tavern in Chancery Lane, which place, I need hardly add, exists no longer. There the old chair stands, wide enough and sturdy enough to hold the ponderous form in the snuff-coloured coat with the brass buttons. I hope the wearer of that coat had many a pleasant hour within the wooden arms, now empty with an emptiness never more to be filled apparently. The chair, alas! is enclosed in a glass case, no doubt a necessary precaution, but one which must effectually keep the ghost out of his seat. No self-respecting ghost could condescend to enter a glass case. _I_ should have had the chair standing in a corner of the room where, in some quiet hour, the Doctor might seat himself for a while to recall bygone times in a spot where yesterday still defies to-day. A night at the "Cheshire Cheese," by the way, might be prolific in ghostly adventure. That grandfather clock on the staircase would have something to say. A clock is, to me, the mouthpiece of a silent house, and after I had visited the bar, to help myself to a drink, and had sat for a while in the Doctor's seat in the dark coffee-room, I should mount the stairs softly, taking the clock unawares. Old clocks are given to thinking aloud, and there's no telling what this one might not reveal. But I am forgetting--the house would not be as silent as I had been picturing it. There would be another sound close at hand, one to which no stretch of the imagination could impute a ghostly interpretation: the sound of _The Pudding_ bubbling and rumbling in the copper boiler! And the ghosts would reasonably wish to avoid the reminder of a feast in which they are no longer able to participate. Nevertheless, I shall put the "Cheshire Cheese" on the list of places I intend to visit when I'm a ghost myself. Meanwhile, I am just going out to post this and buy an evening paper. It therefore behoves me, dear Agatha, to say, _Adieu._ CHAPTER XIII