e in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be--and
allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth
in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman
who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did
not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly,
'I know why: you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever
stayed a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have
been very kind to you.'

"'They--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them;
I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
care--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them,
and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness,
that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off
so cheaply."

"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to
sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you
left so ignominiously."

My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight
towards the house thus indicated.

It is situated 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 neighboring areas, said to me, "Do you
want any one at that house, sir?"

"Yes, I heard it was to be 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 clos