ed on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but
respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up--no bill at the
window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy,
collecting pewter pots at the neighbouring areas, said to me, "Do you
want anyone in that house, sir?"

"Yes, I heard it was to let."

"Let!--why, the woman who kept it is dead--has been dead these three
weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr J---- offered
ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, L1 a week just to
open and shut the windows, and she would not."

"Would not!--and why?"

"The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in
her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her."

"Pooh!--you speak of Mr J----. Is he the owner of the house?"

"Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"In G---- Street, No. ----."

"What is he?--in any business?"

"No, sir--nothing particular; a single gentleman."

I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and
proceeded to Mr J----, in G----Street, which was close by the street
that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr J---- at
home--an elderly man, with intelligent countenance and prepossessing
manners.

I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house
was considered to be haunted--that I had a strong desire to examine a
house with so equivocal a reputation--that I should be greatly obliged
if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing
to pay for that privilege whatever he might be inclined to ask. "Sir,"
said Mr J----, with great courtesy, "the house is at your service, for
as short or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the
question--the obligation will be on my side should you be able to
discover the cause of the strange phenomena which at present deprive it
of all value. I cannot let it, for I cannot even get a servant to keep
it in order or answer the door. Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may
use that expression, not only by night, but by day; though at night the
disturbances are of a more unpleasant and sometimes of a more alarming
character.

"The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a pauper whom I
took out of a workhouse, for in her childhood she had been known to some
of my family, and had once been in such good circumstances that she had
rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of super