you see how much better it is to look into such things.  This room would have furnished me with bad dreams for the remainder of my life, and here I find it is only a commonplace kitchen.  Think how ludicrous to have the horrors over a kitchen!  Sha’n’t I tell of your fright when we get home—­how you didn’t want to open the door, and wanted to ’let well enough alone’?  The place might be haunted by the ghost of a chicken or a rabbit, but, my dear, you should not allow that to terrify you.’

“’Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken that you feared last night, and that caused your presentiments this morning.  I hope you will inform the police of what you have discovered here,’ I remarked quietly.

“’A truce, a truce, good Jane!  I will say no more.  We were both boobies.  But wouldn’t it be ’cute to live here, you and me, and make our own breakfast?  Look at the hole for charcoal, and the little cupboard, the nails for the pots and pans to hang on:  everything is complete.  That room could be for dining, the other a parlor, and—­’

“’The only drawback would be that, except at the North Pole, the night comes once in twenty-four hours.’

“’Don’t be mean, Jane!  Do come in here a minute:  it’s a dear little place.’

“’You will certainly make a housekeeper if a kitchen gives you such ecstasy.  Come out, I am so hungry.  Put on your bonnet and leave this elysium:  I have had enough of it.’

“’You come in for a second:  it will shake the terror off and you won’t dream of it.  That is a cure my old nurse once gave me for laying ghosts.’

“’It may be a good plan to shake off the terror, but the dust on you will not be shaken off so easily.’

“‘Suppose,’ and she stamped her foot—­’suppose that the floor should be hollow, and that this were only a pretended kitchen after all, or that there was a trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a sliding panel.’  Here she felt over the surface of the wall.  ’Why should I feel so queer last night if this was really nothing but a kitchen?’

“‘Because you are a goose,’ I answered impatiently, ’and if you don’t come I will leave you.  If you like, you can engage boarding here for a week, and raise the tiles one by one with a knife and fork.  As for me, I am going to breakfast.’

“‘But don’t you think it really has an uncanny look?’ she asked, giving a last glance over her shoulder as she came out.

“’If you call dirt uncanny, there is plenty of that.  Shut the door, and I will push back the bed.’

“‘Jane,’ she again remarked as she was trying on her bonnet before the crooked glass, ’if ever I tell of this night, I think I will say that there was a trap-door in the kitchen:  you know there might be one and we not see it.’

“‘Oh yes,’ I answered as patiently as I could, ’I suppose a fib more or less will make but little difference in your lifetime.  While you are at it, however, you may as well make a few more additions.’