mpany me on some of my investigations.

I append it as nearly as possible in his own words:--

I was spending Easter, he began, with some friends of mine in
Aberdeen, and, learning from them that there was a haunted house in
the immediate vicinity of the Great Western Road, I begged them to try
and get me permission to spend a night in it. As good luck would have
it, the landlord happened to be a connection of theirs, and although
at first rather reluctant to give me leave, lest by doing so he
should create a precedent, and, consequently, be pestered to death by
people whom he knew to be as anxious as I was to see the ghost, he
eventually yielded; and, the following evening at 8 p.m., accompanied
only by my dog, Scott, I entered the premises.

I cannot say I felt very comfortable when the door slammed behind me,
and I found myself standing alone in a cold, dark passage out of which
rose a gloomy staircase, suggestive of all sorts of uncanny
possibilities. However, overcoming these nervous apprehensions as best
I could, I began a thorough search of the premises, to make sure that
no one was hiding there.

Descending first of all into the basement, I explored the kitchen,
scullery, larder, and other domestic offices. The place fairly reeked
with damp, but this was not to be wondered at, taking in consideration
the fact, that the soil was clay, the floor of the very poorest
quality of cement, cracked and broken in a dozen and one places, and
that there had been no fires in any of the rooms for many months. Here
and there in the darkest corners were clusters of ugly cockroaches,
whilst more than one monstrous rat scampered away on my approach. My
dog, or rather the dog that was lent me, and which went by the name of
Scott, kept close at my heel, showing no very great enthusiasm in his
mission, and giving even the rodents as wide a berth as possible.

I invariably trust to my psychic faculty (as you know, Mr. O'Donnell,
some people are born with the faculty) to enable me to detect the
presence of the superphysical. I generally feel the latter
incorporated in some inexplicable manner in the ether, or see it
inextricably interwoven with the shadows.

Here in the basement it was everywhere--the air was simply saturated
with it, and, as the fading sunlight called shadow after shadow into
existence, it confronted me enigmatically whichever way I turned.

I went upstairs, and the presence followed me. In one or two of the