“Well, I don’t wish for it,” said Miss Drewitt, firmly.  “Please don’t say anything to my uncle about it.”

Mr. Tredgold looked disappointed.  “As you please, of course,” he remarked.

“Old things always seem a little bit musty,” said the girl, softening a little.  “I, should think that I saw the ghosts of dead and gone players sitting round the table.  I remember reading a story about that once.”

“Well, what about the other things?” said Mr. Tredgold.  “Look at those old chairs, full of ghosts sitting piled up in each other’s laps—­there’s no reason why you should only see one sitter at a time.  Think of that beautifully-carved four-poster.”

“My uncle bought that,” said Miss Drewitt, somewhat irrelevantly.

“Yes, but I got it for him,” said Mr. Tredgold.  “You can’t pick up a thing like that at a moment’s notice—­I had my eye on it for years; all the time old Brown was bedridden, in fact.  I used to go and see him and take him tobacco, and he promised me that I should have it when he had done with it.”

“Done with it?” repeated the girl, in a startled voice.  “Did—­did he get another one, then?”

[Illustration:  “‘Done with it?’ repeated the girl, in a startled voice.]

Mr. Tredgold, roused from the pleasurable reminiscences of a collector, remembered himself suddenly.  “Oh, yes, he got another one,” he said, soothingly.

“Is—­is he bedridden now?” inquired the girl.

“I haven’t seen him for some time,” said Mr. Tredgold, truthfully.  “He gave up smoking and—­and then I didn’t go to see him, you know.”

“He’s dead,” said Miss Drewitt, shivering.  “He died in——­ Oh, you are horrible!”

“That carving—­” began Mr. Tredgold.

“Don’t talk about it, please,” said the indignant Miss Drewitt.  “I can’t understand why my uncle should have listened to your advice at all; you must have forced it on him.  I’m sure he didn’t know how you got it.”

“Yes, he did,” said the other.  “In fact, it was intended for his room at first.  He was quite pleased with it.”

“Why did he alter his mind, then?” inquired the girl.

Mr. Tredgold looked suddenly at the opposite wall, but his lips quivered and his eyes watered.  Miss Drewitt, reading these signs aright, was justly incensed.

“I don’t believe it,” she cried.

“He said that you didn’t know and he did,” said Mr. Tredgold, apologetically.  “I talk too much.  I’d no business to let out about old Brown, but I forgot for the moment—­sailors are always prone to childish superstitions.”

“Are you talking about my uncle?” inquired Miss Drewitt, with ominous calm.

“They were his own words,” said the other.

Miss Drewitt, feeling herself baffled, sat for some time wondering how to find fault politely with the young man before her.  Her mind was full of subject-matter, but the politeness easily eluded her.  She threw out after a time the suggestion that his presence at the bedside of sick people was not likely to add to their comfort.