wrote for me, and forthwith started for the river, in order
that I might take a steamboat for Meudon. By one of those coincidences
which happen so often, being quite inexplicable, I had not gone twenty
paces down the street before I ran directly into the arms of Eugene
d'Ardeche. In three minutes we were sitting in the queer little garden
of the Chien Bleu, drinking vermouth and absinthe, and talking it all
over.

"You do not live in your aunt's house?" I said at last, interrogatively.

"No, but if this sort of thing keeps on I shall have to. I like Meudon
much better, and the house is perfect, all furnished, and nothing in it
newer than the last century. You must come out with me to-night and see
it. I have got a jolly room fixed up for my Buddha. But there is
something wrong with this house opposite. I can't keep a tenant in
it,--not four days. I have had three, all within six months, but the
stories have gone around and a man would as soon think of hiring the
Cour des Comptes to live in as No. 252. It is notorious. The fact is,
it is haunted the worst way."

I laughed and ordered more vermouth.

"That is all right. It is haunted all the same, or enough to keep it
empty, and the funny part is that no one knows _how_ it is haunted.
Nothing is ever seen, nothing heard. As far as I can find out, people
just have the horrors there, and have them so bad they have to go to the
hospital afterwards. I have one ex-tenant in the Bicetre now. So the
house stands empty, and as it covers considerable ground and is taxed
for a lot, I don't know what to do about it. I think I'll either give it
to that child of sin, Torrevieja, or else go and live in it myself. I
shouldn't mind the ghosts, I am sure."

"Did you ever stay there?"

"No, but I have always intended to, and in fact I came up here to-day to
see a couple of rake-hell fellows I know, Fargeau and Duchesne, doctors
in the Clinical Hospital beyond here, up by the Parc Mont Souris. They
promised that they would spend the night with me some time in my aunt's
house,--which is called around here, you must know, 'la Bouche
d'Enfer,'--and I thought perhaps they would make it this week, if they
can get off duty. Come up with me while I see them, and then we can go
across the river to Vefour's and have some luncheon, you can get your
things at the Chatham, and we will go out to Meudon, where of course you
will spend the night with me."

The plan suited me perfectly, so we went