complete mystery, and, what is stranger still, it seemed to recognize
me, for it rushed towards me, frantically wagging its diminutive tail. I
had not the heart to turn it away, as it seemed quite homeless, and so
the forlorn little mongrel was permitted to make its home in my
house--and a very happy home it proved to be. For three years all went
well, and then the end came swiftly and unexpectedly. I was in
Blackheath at the time, and the mongrel was in Bath. It was All Hallow
E'en, but there was no hempseed sowing, for no one in the house but
myself took the slightest interest in anything appertaining to the
superphysical or mystic. Eleven o'clock came, and I retired to rest; my
bed being one of those antique four-posters, hung with curtains that
shine crimson in the ruddy glow of a cheerful fire. All my preparations
complete, I had pulled back the hangings, and was about to slip in
between the sheets, when, to my unbounded amazement, what should I see
sitting on the counterpane but the black-and-tan mongrel. It was he
right enough, there could not be another such ugly dog, though, unlike
his usual self, he evinced no demonstrations of joy. On the contrary, he
appeared downright miserable. His ears hung, his mouth dropped, and his
bleared little eyes were watery and sad.

"Greatly perplexed, if not alarmed, at so extraordinary a phenomenon, I
nevertheless felt constrained to put out my hand to comfort him--when,
as I had half anticipated, he immediately vanished. Two days later I
received a letter from Bath, and in a postscript I read that 'the
mongrel' (we never called it by any other name) 'had been run over and
killed by a motor, the accident occurring on All Hallow E'en, about
eleven o'clock.' 'Of course,' my sister wrote, 'you won't mind very
much--it was so extremely ugly, and--well--we were only too glad it was
none of the other dogs.' But my sister was wrong, for notwithstanding
its unsightly appearance and hopeless lack of breed, I had grown to like