carefully, or my visit will have been of no avail.' We read the paper over together most carefully, but of that I may say no more' Having told you what to do,' said the monk, 'I fear I must hie hence. I have much to do to-night after replacing the paper.' 'I will fulfill all that you have asked me brother,' I said, 'and hope that it will make this house less fearsome. But before you go, brother,' I said, 'as you are a Cambridge man, why do you not pay a visit to the author of St Andrews Ghost Stories?' 'He would not see me because I would not materialise myself there, I could only appear as a puff of smoke, or, as it were, a light fog.' ('Thanks, Sister,' I said, 'do not ask any nasty damp fogs to come and call on me.' She laughed.) The monk, in vanishing, said, 'Remember, Sister, no bolts, locks, or bars can keep us from going where we choose.'"
I got up and thanked her, and proceeded to put on a great-coat. "I never wear greatcoats," I said, "in Scotland, but I am afraid of the Cambridge damp, so I borrowed this topcoat from Colonel Churchtimber."
"You have dropped something out of the pocket," said the Sister.
"Hullo," I said, "this is a piece of classical music which must belong to Macbeth Churchtimber, the Colonel's son. Now, good-night, and many thanks, Sister Elfreda."
I descended the stairs and said good-night to the Cruets and Patricia. As I wandered down the street to the theatre in the damp foggy evening I pondered over what Sister Elfreda had told me, and as I lit my pipe I kept thinking of those people—"The Mutilated Football," "The Animated Hairpin," and the "Monk Brother Stanilaus," to whom locks, bolts and bars were as nothing, and who had the nasty habit of appearing to his friends as a damp cloud—a habit, I think, not to be encouraged.
*******
Sister Elfreda now informs me that the peculiar house is now quite "normal," and that all the "bogies" have vanished into thin air.
