The Last Straw In The Stable

 Christmas even and crisp, the light of evenings barely beginning to draw out again, curtains pulled together before they should. I left the sitting-room so that a proper guest could occupy it, each room that I occupied being in my rôle of pre-sitter, along the similar lines of some guests needing pre-tasters for their meals. What did they fear about the rooms — be it lounge, parlour, front-room or, of course, this very room for sitting in that gave it its own name? Fearless ghosts like me have been regularly sent into each room to neutralise any fearful ones! A drawing-room, meanwhile, needed specialist ghosts to act as decoys of exorcism for cruder ghosts that would otherwise have haunted it. A dining-room had pre-tasters, too, often in competition for the best armchair. I could hardly be expected to cope with all such duties in the mansion’s various living spaces. Which brings me to counteracting any poltergeist sociability in the drawing-room with all the hoi polloi of Bohemia eager to occupy the seats and easels. Not to speak of the potential interactions in bedrooms and bathrooms. No pre-sitting duties, understandably, were required in the smallest rooms of all. And attics could look after themselves, except, naturally, for pre-squatting duties, upon each Christmas Eve, within the flues that were chimney conduits. This year, I have sadly pulled the shortest sootiest straw of all. I would, of course, have preferred the salle à manger.