“Although our mutual friend Henry Jacobs, who owns this tower, does not know me at all, and I have never appeared to him, I have had a great liking for him, and have much appreciated his unconscious hospitality. All unbeknown I have accompanied him on many of his business trips to various places, particularly to the Island of Manhattan that I happen to know a great deal about, as will appear later, and am quite familiar with his affairs. While he is perfectly able to take care of himself, I feel that under the circumstances I have a sort of spiritual responsibility, so to speak. “I confess that, although I am a ghost, and loneliness might naturally be considered my specialty, I am at times a little too lonely and it would be nice and sociable to have an old ghostly friend with me. We might think it best for Kinisi to go out after somebody we didn’t like sometime, and you may depend upon it, that if he starts, he will not come back alone. There will be other shades with him. He is one of the best terrifiers I ever knew. I have known him to frighten people so that they have jumped off the tops of high buildings, and he has caused many sudden exits from the material world. [Illustration: LOOKING NORTH FROM THE TOWER TOP IN JACOBIA] “I have been sensible of this moral obligation and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk with you tonight. I am sorry that our friend Jacobs has never happened to be up here at an opportune time. I always make it a point to be somewhere up stairs in the tower during the night before Christmas. Perhaps you might mention this to him and I may have the pleasure of talking with him next year, unless for some reason I should be called away.” “But what happened after the victory over the Turks?” I asked, seeing that my pale friend was somewhat inclined to wander in his narrative. “Oh yes, excuse me. After our triumph over Ali Bey we had no serious trouble with the Turks for some time, but one night when I was asleep in my tower a bloody gang of these dogs came and I was hacked into pieces with a dozen scimitars. It is the custom of spirits to wear a semblance of their earthly apparel at the time of passing into the immaterial sphere--merely as a recognition of absurd human conventions--and that accounts for what appears to you to be a night cap on my head. The light, wavy lines leading away from my face suggest the gown I was wearing when my mortal remains were tossed into the depression back of my tower. All this happened on Christmas eve. It is a rule with many of the spiritual fraternity to visualize but once a year. I usually select this anniversary for such few appearances as I care to make, unless the occasion is something very special.