"I don't know," said Dawson; "but it must be something terrible. I don't mind a ghost that will make the hair of living beings stand on end, but a nameless invisible something that affects a mattress that way has a terrible potency that I have no desire to combat. It's a mystery, and, as a rule, I like mysteries, but the mystery of Dampmere I'd rather let alone." "Don't say a word about the--ah--the mattress, Charlie," said Perkins, after awhile. "The fellows'll never believe it." "No. I was thinking that very same thing," said Dawson. And they were both true to Dawson's resolve, which is possibly why the mystery of Dampmere has never been solved. If any of my readers can furnish a solution, I wish they would do so, for I am very much interested in the case, and I truly hate to leave a story of this kind in so unsatisfactory a condition. A ghost story without any solution strikes me as being about as useful as a house without a roof. CARLETON BARKER, FIRST AND SECOND My first meeting with Carleton Barker was a singular one. A friend and I, in August, 18--, were doing the English Lake District on foot, when, on nearing the base of the famous Mount Skiddaw, we observed on the road, some distance ahead of us, limping along and apparently in great pain, the man whose subsequent career so sorely puzzled us. Noting his very evident distress, Parton and I quickened our pace and soon caught up with the stranger, who, as we reached his side, fell forward upon his face in a fainting condition--as well he might, for not only must he have suffered great agony from a sprained ankle, but inspection of his person disclosed a most extraordinary gash in his right arm, made apparently with a sharp knife, and which was bleeding most profusely. To stanch the flow of blood was our first care, and Parton, having recently been graduated in medicine, made short work of relieving the sufferer's pain from his ankle, bandaging it about and applying such soothing properties as he had in his knapsack--properties, by the way, with which, knowing the small perils to which pedestrians everywhere are liable, he was always provided.