house, but had seen nothing more of the old men v Goodchild, in rambling about it, had looked along passages, and glanced in at doorways, but had encountered no old men neither did it appear that any old men were, by any member of the establishment, missed or expected.
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, spread with confidence, opened a little way, opened good way, always clapped to, again without a word of explanation. They were reading, they were writing, they were cating, 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 were 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. Mr. Thomas Idle, who was speaking at the moment, paused and said, "How goes it?"
"One," said Mr. Goodchild.
To be continued...