George took his glasses off, cleaned them with a tissue, and shook his head. “I used to be afraid I was going crazy sometimes when I was a kid. Damn, I forgot the whole thing until now. Or shoved it out of my mind anyhow. I never got along with my father, but my grandfather was an idol of mine. He died when I was nine. Sometimes I thought I saw him, upstairs usually. But several times it happened in the waiting room, downstairs, in broad daylight. But as a kid coming down the front stairs, I had the weirdest impression that the rooms at the foot of the stairs were … different, and that if I was careful, I could catch them the way they were before…. Before what? Hell, I didn’t know. But I used to sneak down the stairs at odd hours, and one night I swear I saw the waiting room as it was when my grandfather was in his prime. And there were gaslights. As I grew up I convinced myself that it was all my imagination….”

George’s eyes were half closed. His voice grew dreamy. “Granpa was known as a sort of odd nut. Adored by his patients. He was the best of the Victorian do-gooders, up to his neck in humanitarian work and so forth. He left an old journal. It’s in the attic somewhere, I suppose. But he was into … expansion of consciousness or something like that, and he followed all the works of William James. He carried on some weird experiments and wrote to James about them, I guess. My father said he was dotty and told me to rid my mind of my grandfather’s nonsense.” Coming back to himself, George’s face reddened and he said, “So I grew up to be a good red-blooded American boy.” Then, “Hell, I don’t know what I’m apologizing for. I’m a damn good dentist.”

“So was your grandfather,” said Seven, grinning. “And when I’ve seen him, he’s been sniffing laughing gas….”

At Seven’s remark, George Brainbridge leapt to his feet. “That does it,” he cried. “That’s a family secret. I mean, it was considered a really deep dark secret. My father told me never to speak of it. I caught Granddad sniffing laughing gas fairly often. Summers my parents went abroad; my dad was a dandy of sorts, to be frank, a social climber. We had a housekeeper, and summers I stayed home with her and my grandfather up until the year of his death. Later I went with my parents, or to summer camp. It must have been my grandfather you saw one way or the other; hell, he let me sniff once, too; he was fairly old by then. I had a ball.”

“Then we did see a ghost?” Gregory Diggs asked. “Now you’re putting me on. He was solid, I tell you.”