BOOK THE FIRST: THE CUP AND THE LIP
Chapter 12: The Sweat of an Honest Man's Brow (continued)
'But you are not a consistent fellow, Eugene.'
'In susceptibility to boredom,' returned that worthy, 'I assure you I
am the most consistent of mankind.'
'Why, it was but now that you were dwelling in the advantages of a
monotony of two.'
'In a lighthouse. Do me the justice to remember the condition. In
a lighthouse.'
Mortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too for the
first time, as if he found himself on reflection rather entertaining,
relapsed into his usual gloom, and drowsily said, as he enjoyed his
cigar, 'No, there is no help for it; one of the prophetic deliveries of
M. R. F. must for ever remain unfulfilled. With every disposition
to oblige him, he must submit to a failure.'
It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and
the sawdust was whirling outside paler windows. The underlying
churchyard was already settling into deep dim shade, and the
shade was creeping up to the housetops among which they sat. 'As
if,' said Eugene, 'as if the churchyard ghosts were rising.'
He had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, to exalt
its flavour by comparing the fireside with the outside, when he
stopped midway on his return to his arm-chair, and said:
'Apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in to be
directed. Look at this phantom!'
Lightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his head,
and there, in the darkness of the entry, stood a something in the
likeness of a man: to whom he addressed the not irrelevant inquiry,
'Who the devil are you?'
'I ask your pardons, Governors,' replied the ghost, in a hoarse
double-barrelled whisper, 'but might either on you be Lawyer
Lightwood?'
'What do you mean by not knocking at the door?' demanded
Mortimer.
'I ask your pardons, Governors,' replied the ghost, as before, 'but
probable you was not aware your door stood open.'
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