“I am very sorry if you have had any unpleasant sensations after what has just happened,” he began, after a few vague vibrations of the cloudy veil, that might have been shifted slightly to insure comfort on the stairway, “but it was necessary for me to float to the top of the tower at exactly midnight for a manifestation, and I retired into the crypt below for a moment afterwards to partake of a light draught from a phantom flagon that I keep there. Like the widow’s cruse of oil mentioned in the scriptures, my flagon is always full, and you will at once perceive that in my immaterial state I enjoy some priceless advantages. My flagon affords me much consolation. The contents might seem a little musty to you if you were down there, but I assure you that the liquid was once of the very highest quality. I found it here when I came. Evidently something was once kept in that flagon that had highly reactive qualities--something like the kick of a mad bull--but this element had long been latent when I found it. I hope that you are perfectly comfortable down there. If you feel cold I can easily warm you up with some sensations that you probably have never experienced.” I assured him that I was quite contented and did not require any more sensations than I was having, and begged him not to worry about me at all. “You probably would like to know something about me and how I happen to be haunting this tower,” he continued. “It’s quite a long story, but I think you’ll enjoy it. If there are any points in the narration that appear obscure to you, or any that you wish particularly to discuss, please don’t hesitate to interrupt me, as it’s no trouble to talk about my experiences, and there’s plenty of time, as long as we finish before daylight. If we should forget ourselves, and too much light should come, I may fade away quietly and become silent, but don’t be surprised or offended in any way, for if circumstances permit we can easily meet again and continue our little talk. “My earthly name was Emric Szapolyai, and I died in Hungary in 1489. Measured by your standards that was a long time ago, but among the spirit fraternity time does not cut any particular figure, so, as far as my relationships in the abstract world are concerned, I might just as well have died hundreds of years before that or hundreds of years later. “You may have difficulty at first in pronouncing my last name correctly, but if you sneeze slightly and try to say ‘Apollonaris’ while you are doing it, you will probably get it. I notice that a great many people in the material world are doing this now. Sometimes they get it and sometimes they don’t.” “But how is it,” I asked, “that you speak modern English so fluently, if you were a Hungarian and died so long ago, before we had any modern English?”