nd. As for the owl, that was probably painted with the
same chemical. People were more superstitious then than now. I have no
doubt that an ignorant person like Ephraim, who had lived all his life
in London, had been scared out of his wits by this machine. Like most
ignorant people, he probably reckoned the thing as devilish, merely
because he did not understand it. One or two neighbours, a housemaid
or so, perhaps, had seen it, too. On the strength of their reports the
house had gotten a bad name. The two unoccupied floors had failed to
get tenants, while Mr. Jermyn, the contriver of the whole, had been left
alone, as no doubt he had planned. I thought that Londoners must be a
very foolish people to be so easily misled. Now that I am older, I see
that Londoners often live in very narrow grooves. They are apt to be
frightened at anything to which they have not been accustomed; unless,
of course, it is a war, when they can scream about themselves so loudly
that they forget that they are screaming.

I examined the machine critically, by its own candle, which I removed
for the purpose. I meant to fix up one very like it in Ephraim's
bed-room as soon as I found an opportunity. Then I looked about the
room for some other toy, feeling in a fine state of excitement with
the success of my adventure. The room was quite bare. But for this
ghost-machine, there was nothing which could interest me, except a
curious drawing, done with a burnt stick on the plaster of the wall,
of a man-of-war under sail. After examining this drawing, I listened
carefully at the door lest my faint footsteps should have roused someone
below. I could hear no one stirring; the house was silent. "I must be
careful," I said to myself. "They all may have gone to bed." Understand,
I did not know then what I was doing. I was merely a wrong-headed boy,
up to a prank, begun in a moment of rebellion. When I paused in the
landing, outside the ghost-room, shading the candle with my hand, I was
not aware that I was doing wrong. I was only thinking how fine it would
be to find out about Mr. Jermyn, before crawling back, over the plank,
to my bed. I wanted to steal about these deserted floors, like a
conspirator; then, having, perhaps, found out about the mystery, to go
back home. It did not enter my head that I might be shot as a burglar.
My original intention, you must remember, had only been to stop the
works of the ghost. It was later on that my intention became cr