stories.'

'Oh, likely enough--with additions from the magazines, as I said. You
never heard, did you, of a real ghost at a private school? I thought not;
nobody has that ever I came across.'

'From the way in which you said that, I gather that _you_ have.'

'I really don't know; but this is what was in my mind. It happened at my
private school thirty odd years ago, and I haven't any explanation of it.

'The school I mean was near London. It was established in a large and
fairly old house--a great white building with very fine grounds about it;
there were large cedars in the garden, as there are in so many of the
older gardens in the Thames valley, and ancient elms in the three or four
fields which we used for our games. I think probably it was quite an
attractive place, but boys seldom allow that their schools possess any
tolerable features.

'I came to the school in a September, soon after the year 1870; and among
the boys who arrived on the same day was one whom I took to: a Highland
boy, whom I will call McLeod. I needn't spend time in describing him: the
main thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional
boy in any way--not particularly good at books or games--but he suited
me.

'The school was a large one: there must have been from 120 to 130 boys
there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and
there were rather frequent changes among them.