"Good afternoon, John," said the old gentleman, courteously removing his cocked hat. "Good afternoon!" I gasped. "How do you know my name?" "Because I have not forgotten my own," he replied. "I am John Halliwell, your great-grandfather. Don't you remember me?" A flood of light burst upon my brain. Of course! I ought to have recognised him at once from the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, just about to be sold by auction. The artist had gone to full length in painting him, and here he was complete, from his white wig, beautifully frizzled by the smoke, to his buckled shoes, from his knee-breeches to the frills at his wrists. "Oh! pray pardon my not having recognised you," I cried remorsefully; "I have such a bad memory for faces. Won't you take a chair?" "Sir, I have not sat down for a century and a half," he said simply. "Pray be seated yourself." [Illustration: "PRAY BE SEATED YOURSELF," SAID THE GHOST SIMPLY.] Thus reminded of my undignified position, I gathered myself up, and readjusting the complex apparatus, confided myself again to its canvas caresses. Then, grown conscious of my shirt-sleeves, I murmured,-- "Excuse my deshabille. I did not expect to see you." "I am aware the season is inopportune," he said apologetically. "But I did not care to put off my visit till Christmas. You see, with us Christmas is a kind of Bank Holiday; and when there is a general excursion, a refined spirit prefers its own fireside. Moreover, I am not, as you may see, very robust, and I scarce like to risk exposing myself to such an extreme change of temperature. Your English Christmas is so cold. With the pyrometer at three hundred and fifty, it is hardly prudent to pass to thirty. On a sultry day like this the contrast is less marked." "I understand," I said sympathetically. "But I should hardly have ventured," he went on, "to trespass upon you at this untimely season merely out of deference to my own valetudinarian instincts. The fact is, I am a _littérateur_." "Oh, indeed," I said vaguely; "I was not aware of it." "Nobody was aware of it," he replied sadly; "but my calling at this professional hour will, perhaps, go to substantiate my statement." I looked at him blankly. Was he quite sane? All the apparitions I had ever heard of spoke with some approach to coherence, however imbecile their behaviour. The statistics of insanity in the spiritual world have never been published, but I suspect the percentage of madness is high. Mere harmless idiocy is doubtless the prevalent form of dementia, judging by the way the poor unhappy spirits set about compassing their ends; but some of their actions can only be explained by the more violent species of mania. My great-grandfather seemed to read the suspicion in my eye, for he hastily continued:--