“Yes,” said the manager. “The porter who, with the late manager, found the corpse in Room 222, is now in Hanwell Lunatic Asylum.” I paused, perhaps in awe. “Then you think,” I said, “that I was the victim of a hallucination on my previous visit here? You think I had a glimpse of the world of spirits?” “On these matters,” said the manager, “I prefer to think nothing.” SATURDAY TO MONDAY. So at length I yielded to repeated invitations, and made up my mind to visit the Vernons again. And it was in June. I had not been for nearly two years. The last visit was in the month of August: I remembered it too well--that year, that month, that day! Under the most favourable circumstances, it needs enterprise and energy for a Londoner to pay a week-end visit to a friend’s house in the country. No matter how intimate the friend--and the Vernons, though charming and full of good nature, were not really very intimate friends of mine--there is always an element of risk in the affair; I will go further and say an element of preliminary unpleasantness. It means the disarrangement of regular habits; it means packing one’s bag and lugging it into a hansom; it means a train-journey; it often means a drive at the other end; it means sleeping in a strange bed and finding a suitable hook for one’s razor strop the next morning; it means accommodating oneself to a new social atmosphere, and the expenditure of much formal politeness. And suppose some hitch occurs--some trifling contretemps to ruffle the smoothness of the hours--where are you then? You are bound to sit tight and smile till Monday, and at parting to enlarge on your sorrow that the visit is over, all the while feeling intensely relieved; and you have got nothing in exchange for your discomfort and inconvenience save the satisfaction of duty done--a poor return, I venture to add. You know you have wasted a week-end, an irrecoverable week-end of eternity.