he writing should
follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment may
be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a
stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit
of ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghost
has changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost of
a woman, I am sure that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see
you 'when the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the
_ir_rational explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to
add that I don't set a pin's value on _that_ explanation either."

Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question began
to irritate me.

"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the circumstances
that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?"

"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the
circumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that way, and you put it
right. Just look round you. Here we three persons are alive and hearty
at this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine or
yourself were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am,
could no more explain what first principle of life and movement had
been suddenly extinguished in you than the dog there sleeping on the
hearth-rug. If I am content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an
impenetrable mystery as this--presented to me, day after day, every time
I see a living creature come into the world or go out of it--why may I
not sit down content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, and
say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is an end of her?"

At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first time.

"Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to take
your sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe it?--he
positively means (if he can find the place) to go to Saint Anthony's
Well!"

Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue.

"Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does he? Well,
I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his resolution. I can
tell him of another man who kept a written appointment with a ghost, and
what came of it."

This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he said?

"Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked.

"I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No si