"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them. I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't care,--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off so cheaply." "You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you left so ignominiously." My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight towards the house thus indicated. It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up,--no bill at the window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me, "Do you want any one at that house, sir?" "Yes, I heard it was to be let." "Let!--why, the woman who kept it is dead,--has been dead these three weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J---- offered ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, £1 a week just to open and shut the windows, and she would not." "Would not!--and why?" "The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in her bed, with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her." "Pooh! You speak of Mr. J----. Is he the owner of the house?" "Yes." "Where does he live?" "In G---- Street, No. ----." "What is he? In any business?" "No, sir,--nothing particular; a single gentleman." I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and proceeded to Mr. J----, in G---- Street, which was close by the street that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J---- at home,--an elderly man with intelligent countenance and prepossessing manners.