A MOST weird experience I once had made me less cynical about ghosts. I travelled regularly by the 8:30 a.m. train to the town where I worked, and the train was usually crowded with business people. I soon began to notice that one compartment was always empty, but for no apparent reason. One morning, arriving at the last minute, I climbed into the deserted carriage as the whistle sounded. I settled down to a book and gave no thought to my solitude. The train had been travelling some minutes when I was disturbed by a slight noise which sounded like subdued sobbing. It was not a corridor train, so I could only explore beneath the seats, but found nothing there. I eventually put it down to the noise of the engine, but, as the train gathered speed, the noise became distinct from any other sound and seemed to get louder and more plaintive. The thought of the coming tunnel made my heart beat quickly. The sobbing stopped before we reached the tunnel, however, but, as the overpowering darkness engulfed the carriage, I had a ghastly sensation of being choked. This lasted for at least two minutes. I tried to cry out, but, perhaps from sheer fright, no sound came from my throat. As we steamed out of the tunnel, the sobbing re-started, but, after a while, panted itself into silence, which seemed to my now hysterical nerves more terrible than the wailing noise itself. I practically tottered out of that train on reaching my destination, and was not surprised to learn afterwards that there had been a suicide in that compartment which accounted for the passengers avoiding it. The Black Dog of the Cotswolds WEST-COUNTRYMEN are very sensitive to ridicule. That is why a stranger might inquire from Bath to Bredon without obtaining a single admission concerning the Black Dog of the Cotswolds. But let him live amongst us; let him gain our confidence, and he may interview witnesses by the dozen. Few, indeed, have met the creature face to face, though many claim a distant glimpse, and it would be hard to find a shepherd past middle-age who had not come upon the foot-prints of the phantom, starting from nowhere and leading nowhere, in the early morning snow. Always in the snow he comes and always by moonlight. It is now some three years since old Dick Slingbraces passed to rest, leaving the following story to perpetuate his memory.