"'The fact is, sir, that--somehow--I can't.'



"'You CAN'T?'



"'No, sir. There's something I've forgotten. I've been hanging

about here since midnight last night, hiding in the cupboards

of the empty bedrooms and things like that. I'm flurried. I've never

come haunting before, and it seems to put me out.'



"'Put you out?'



"'Yes, sir. I've tried to do it several times, and it doesn't come off.

There's some little thing has slipped me, and I can't get back.'



"That, you know, rather bowled me over. He looked at me in such

an abject way that for the life of me I couldn't keep up quite

the high, hectoring vein I had adopted. 'That's queer,' I said,

and as I spoke I fancied I heard some one moving about down below.

'Come into my room and tell me more about it,' I said. 'I didn't,

of course, understand this,' and I tried to take him by the arm.

But, of course, you might as well have tried to take hold of a puff

of smoke! I had forgotten my number, I think; anyhow, I remember

going into several bedrooms--it was lucky I was the only soul

in that wing--until I saw my traps. 'Here we are,' I said, and sat

down in the arm-chair; 'sit down and tell me all about it. It seems

to me you have got yourself into a jolly awkward position, old chap.'



"Well, he said he wouldn't sit down! he'd prefer to flit up and down

the room if it was all the same to me. And so he did, and in a little

while we were deep in a long and serious talk. And presently,

you know, something of those whiskies and sodas evaporated out of me,

and I began to realise just a little what a thundering rum and weird

business it was that I was in. There he was, semi-transparent--

the proper conventional phantom, and noiseless except for his ghost

of a voice--flitting to and fro in that nice, clean, chintz-hung

old bedroom. You could see the gleam of the copper candlesticks

through him, and the lights on the brass fender, and the corners

of the framed engravings on the wall,--and there he was telling me

all about this wretched little life of his that had recently ended

on earth. He hadn't a particularly honest face, you know, but being

transparent, of course, he couldn't avoid telling the truth."



"Eh?" said Wish, suddenly sitting up in his chair.



"What?" said Clayton.



"Being transparent--couldn't avoid telling the truth--I don't see it,"

said Wish.





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