but in that fact lay all the interest; and he proffered no
explanation. His silence was irritating and made me resentful.

"My good friend," I said, somewhat ironically, I fear, "I am not
disposed to question your right to harbor as many spooks as you find
agreeable to your taste and consistent with your notions of
companionship; that is no business of mine. But being just a plain
man of affairs, mostly of this world, I find spooks needless to my
peace and comfort. I am going to my hotel, where my fellow-guests
are still in the flesh."

It was not a very civil speech, but he manifested no feeling about
it. "Kindly remain," he said. "I am grateful for your presence
here. What you have heard to-night I believe myself to have heard
twice before. Now I KNOW it was no illusion. That is much to me--
more than you know. Have a fresh cigar and a good stock of patience
while I tell you the story."

The rain was now falling more steadily, with a low, monotonous
susurration, interrupted at long intervals by the sudden slashing of
the boughs of the trees as the wind rose and failed. The night was
well advanced, but both sympathy and curiosity held me a willing
listener to my friend's monologue, which I did not interrupt by a
single word from beginning to end.

"Ten years ago," he said, "I occupied a ground-floor apartment in one
of a row of houses, all alike, away at the other end of the town, on
what we call Rincon Hill. This had been the best quarter of San
Francisco, but had fallen into neglect and decay, partly because the
primitive character of its domestic architecture no longer suited the