"A mere fit of sneezing," he went on; "but you are now able to judge, from the events of to-night, how extremely hard it is for us, with the best intentions, to communicate coherently with the embodied world. Why, there is the Puddifant ghost--in Lord Puddifant's family, you know: _he_ has been trying for generations to inform his descendants that the drainage of the castle is execrable. Yet he can never come nearer what he means than taking the form of a shadowy hearse-and-four, and driving round and round Castle Puddifant at midnight. And old Lady Wadham's ghost, what a sufferer that woman is! She merely desires to remark that the family diamonds, lost many years ago, were never really taken abroad by the valet and sold. He only had time to conceal them in a secret drawer behind the dining-room chimney-piece. Now she can get no nearer expressing herself than producing a spirited imitation of the music of the bagpipes, which wails up and down the house, and frightens the present Sir Robert Wadham and his people nearly out of their wits. And that's the way with almost all of us: there is literally no connection (as a rule) between our expressions and the things we intend to express. You know how the Psychical Society make quite a study of rappings, and try to interpret them by the alphabet? Well, these, as I told you, are merely a nervous symptom; annoying, no doubt, but not dangerous. The only spectres, almost, that manage to hint what they really mean are Banshees." "_They_ intend to herald an approaching death?" I asked. "They do, and abominably bad taste I call it, unless a man has neglected to insure his life, and _then_ I doubt if a person of honour could make use of information from--from that quarter. Banshees are chiefly the spectres of attached and anxious old family nurses, women of the lower orders, and completely destitute of tact. I call a Banshee rather a curse than a boon and a blessing to men. Like most old family servants, they are apt to be presuming." It occurred to me that the complacent spectre himself was not an unmixed delight to the inhabitants of Castle Perilous, or at least to their guests, for they never lay in the Green Chamber themselves. "Can nothing be done," I asked sympathetically, "to alleviate the disorders which you say are so common and distressing?"