"One day we were out together. Darnton had gone to the dentist, and Ghoul, tired of his own company, resolved to pay me a visit. He wandered in at the wicket gate of my garden just as I was about to set off for a morning constitutional. I greeted him somewhat boisterously, for Ghoul, when extra solemn, always excited my risibility, and, after a brief skirmish with him on behalf of my cat, an extraordinarily ugly Tom, for whom Ghoul cherished the most inveterate hatred, we set off together. It was pure accident that led me into the Adelaide Road. I was half-way along it, thinking of nothing in particular, when someone whistled behind me, and I turned round. As a rule, one may see a few pedestrians--one or two at least--at all times of the day in the Adelaide Road, but oddly enough no one was in sight just at that moment, and I could see no traces of Ghoul. I called him, and getting no reply, walked back a little distance. At last I discovered him. He was in the front garden of Barcombe House, sitting in the centre of a grass plot, his eyes fixed on space, but with such an expression of absorbing interest that I was absolutely astounded. Thinking something, perhaps, was hiding in the bushes, I threw stones and made a great shooing; but nothing came out, and Ghoul still maintained his position. The look in his face did not suggest anything antagonistic, it was indicative rather of something very pleasing to him--something idealistic--something he adored. "I shouted 'Ghoul!' He did not take the slightest notice, and when I caught him by the scruff of the neck, he dug his paws in the ground and whined piteously. Then I grew alarmed. He must either have hurt himself or have gone mad. I examined him carefully, and nothing appearing to be the matter with him, I lifted him up, and, despite his frantic struggles, carried him out of the garden. "The moment I set him down he raced back. Then I grew determined. A taxi was hailed, and Ghoul, driven off in it, speedily found himself a close prisoner in Darnton's exceedingly unromantic study. "That afternoon I revisited Barcombe House alone. The premises were to let, and, judging by their neglected and dilapidated appearance, had been so for some considerable time. Both front and back garden were overgrown with a wild profusion of convolvulus, thistles, and other weeds; and an air of desolation, common to all abandoned houses, hung about the place. All the same, I could detect nothing unpleasant. "I was unmistakably aware of some superphysical influence; but that influence, unlike the majority of those I had hitherto experienced, was decidedly attractive.