"Wait a little," he said. "There's the _ir_rational explanation
to try next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of
your mind better than the other. We will say this time that you
have really seen the ghost (or double) of a living person. Very
good. If you can suppose a disembodied spirit to appear in
earthly clothing--of silk or merino, as the case may be--it's no
great stretch to suppose, next, that this same spirit is capable
of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal words in a
mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your
ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the 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 sick person really
believes in a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at
the head of our profession who has ever been discovered in high
spirits (in medical hours) by his nearest and dearest friend. You
may have wondered, I dare say, at seeing me take your strange
narrative as coolly as I do. It comes naturally, sir. Yours is
not the first story of a ghost and a pencil that I have heard."

"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man
who has seen what I have seen?"

"That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. "The
man was a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the
honorable name of Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I'll take
another glass of the sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the
vulgar saying is, before I begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was
mate of a bark at the time I'm speaking of, and he was on a
voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. At noon one day, he and
the captain, having taken their observation of the sun, were hard
at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on their
slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door
of the captain's cabin opposite. 'What do you make it, sir?' says
Brace. The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did
Bruce see? The face of the captain? Devil a bit of it--the face
of a total stranger! Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full
gallop all in a moment, and searches for the captain on deck, and
finds him much as usual, with his calculations done, and his
latitude and longitude off his mind for the day. 'There's
somebody at your des k, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's writing on your
slate; and he's a total stranger to me.' 'A stranger in my
cabin?' says the captain. 'Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six
weeks out of port. How did he get on board?' Bruce doesn't know
how, but he sticks to his story. Away goes the captain, and
bursts like a whirlwind into his cabin, and finds nobody there.
Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledge that the place is
certainly empty. 'If I didn't know you were a sober man,' says


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