Very many years ago now I was sauntering down historic old South Street one November afternoon, my object being to lunch in one of the quaint houses with my old time friend, Harold Slitherwick. Lunch was not, however, the main object of my visit, but to meet a man called Reginald S?deger, an ex-Indian judge, who had actually seen a genuine spirit or ghost.

It is a sad, nay, a melancholy fact (for I have been told this by the very best authorities) that I am not Psychic, despite the fact that I have spent days and nights in gloomy, grimly-haunted chambers and ruins, and even a lonesome Hallowe’en night on the summit of St Rule’s ancient Tower (my only companions being sandwiches, matches, some cigars, and the necessary and indispensable flask), yet, alas! I have never heard or seen anything the least abnormal, or felt the necessary, or much-talked-of mystic presence.

Arrived at the old mansion, I was duly ushered in by Slitherwick’s butler, one Joe Bingworthy, a man with the manner and appearance of an archbishop, and from whom one always seemed to expect a sort of pontifical blessing.

There were several fellows there, and I was speedily made known to S?deger, a very cheery, pleasant little person, with dark hair and big eyebrows.

There was a very heated discussion going on when I entered as to what was really a properly constituted Cathedral. Darkwood was shouting, “No Bishop’s Chair, no Cathedral.” “If,” he said, “a Bishop had his chair in a tiny chapel, it was a Cathedral, but if a religious building was as big as the Crystal Palace, and there was no Bishop’s Chair there, it was not one bit a Cathedral.”

I stopped this discussion suddenly by asking [76]S?deger about his ghost, and was told I would hear the whole story after lunch.

Before we adjourned to the smoke room S?deger was telling us he felt a bit knocked up with his long journey. He had a thirty-six hours’ journey after he left good old Tony-Pandy. Visions of “Tony Lumpkin,” and “Tony Faust,” in “My Sweetheart,” flitted through my brain, then I suddenly remembered, luckily, that “Tony-pandy” was a town in Wales.

Once comfortably seated in the smoke-room with pipes, cigars, and whisky, Reginald S?deger became at once the centre of all the interest.

“Lots of years ago,” he said, in a quiet legal voice, “I came to visit some friends in St Andrews, and I had a most unaccountable experience. I will tell you all about it. I never saw anything supernatural before, and have never seen anything the least remarkable since; but one night, my first night in that house, I undoubtedly saw the wraith of the ‘Blue Girl.’”

“What had you for supper that evening?” I mildly asked.

“Only chicken and salad,” was the reply. “I was not thinking of anything ghostly. If you fix your mind intently on one thing, some folk can, you can self-hypnotise yourself. I had no idea but golf in my mind when I went off to roost.”

“Well, drive ahead,” said I.

“I had a charming, comfortable, big old-world room given me, nice fire, and all that sort of thing,” continued S?deger, “and as I was deuced tired I soon went to bed and to sleep.

“I woke suddenly, later, with the firm conviction that a pair of eyes were fixed on me. I suppose everyone knows that if you stare fixedly at any sleeping person, they will soon awake. I got a start when I half-opened my eyes, for leaning on the mantelpiece staring hard at me in the mirror was a most beautiful girl in a light blue gauzy dress, her back, of course, was to the bed, and I saw she had masses of wavy, golden-brown hair hanging down long past her waist.

“I was utterly astonished, and watched the movements of this beautiful creature with my eyes almost closed. I felt sure it was someone in the house having a lark at my expense, so pretended to be asleep. As I watched, the girl turned round[77] and faced me, and I marvelled at the extraordinary loveliness of her figure and features. I wondered if she was a guest in the house, and what she was doing wandering about at that time of night, and if she was sleep-walking? She then glided—it certainly was not walking—to a corner of the room, and then I noticed that her feet were bare. She seemed to move along above the carpet—not on it—a curious motion. She drifted, and stood beneath a big picture, took out a key and opened a small aumbrey, or cupboard, in the wall quite noiselessly. And from this receptacle she took out some small things that glittered in her pretty fingers, long taper fingers.”

“How on earth did you contrive to see all that in a dark bedroom?” I sarcastically inquired.

“The room wasn’t dark,” said S?deger. “I always keep the light burning in a strange house and in a strange room.”

“Oh, I see,” I replied. “Go on.”

“Well,” continued Reginald S?deger, “she then turned and came towards the bed, and I got a more distinct view of............