I bounced into my room again with a feeling of loathing and horror I cannot describe, and locked and bolted my door as if a lion had been at the other side. D--n him or _it_; curse the portrait and its original! I felt in my soul that the rat--yes, the _rat_, the RAT I had just seen, was that evil being in masquerade, and rambling through the house upon some infernal night lark. Next morning I was early trudging through the miry streets; and, among other transactions, posted a peremptory note recalling Tom. On my return, however, I found a note from my absent "chum," announcing his intended return next day. I was doubly rejoiced at this, because I had succeeded in getting rooms; and because the change of scene and return of my comrade were rendered specially pleasant by the last night's half ridiculous half horrible adventure. I slept extemporaneously in my new quarters in Digges' Street that night, and next morning returned for breakfast to the haunted mansion, where I was certain Tom would call immediately on his arrival. I was quite right--he came; and almost his first question referred to the primary object of our change of residence. "Thank God," he said with genuine fervour, on hearing that all was arranged. "On _your_ account I am delighted. As to myself, I assure you that no earthly consideration could have induced me ever again to pass a night in this disastrous old house." "Confound the house!" I ejaculated, with a genuine mixture of fear and detestation, "we have not had a pleasant hour since we came to live here"; and so I went on, and related incidentally my adventure with the plethoric old rat. "Well, if that were _all_," said my cousin, affecting to make light of the matter, "I don't think I should have minded it very much." "Ay, but its eye--its countenance, my dear Tom," urged I; "if you had seen _that_, you would have felt it might be _anything_ but what it seemed." "I inclined to think the best conjurer in such a case would be an able-bodied cat," he said, with a provoking chuckle. "But let us hear your own adventure," I said tartly. At this challenge he looked uneasily round him. I had poked up a very unpleasant recollection. "You shall hear it, Dick; I'll tell it to you," he said. "Begad, sir, I should feel quite queer, though, telling it _here_, though we are too strong a body for ghosts to meddle with just now." Though he spoke this like a joke, I think it was serious calculation. Our Hebe was in a corner of the room, packing our cracked delft tea and dinner-services in a basket. She soon suspended operations, and with mouth and eyes wide open became an absorbed listener. Tom's experiences were told nearly in these words:----