long grey hair and a pale, lined face, that was fearfully old and knowing and ugly, that reminded me of—but perhaps I had better not say whom, though you are sure to guess. How big he was I won't say either, because, as I said before, I've got a vivid imagination, and I don't feel that I could survive a real good cross examination on the events of that dreadful night.
I think he must have decided at last that he did like me as, suddenly, without any warning, he gave an awful whoop that made me nearly jump out of my skin, and then began waltzing round and round the bed waving his arms. I fell back, and put my head under the bedclothes. But that was worse. I felt I positively must see what he was doing. I peeped out. He was still waltzing round and round, and the uncanny thing was that he made no sound except an occasional whoop that made my blood run cold. His feet seemed to fall almost noiselessly on the floor, though he gave great leaps and bounds. Awful stories of baboons came back to me. One particularly dreadful one of Edgar Allan Poe's, dimly remembered before, stood out with terrible distinctness now. I wondered if he knew how flimsy was the mosquito net that was all there was between us. Fortunately, though once or twice he came up quite close to it and peered through at me, he never tried to touch it.
I began to get more confidence as the dance went on and nothing happened. Several of Aunt Agatha's maxims recurred to me. After all, this
