"Well, then," said Caleb, "you're no good here. This Church is all right. What will you give me to let you out?" "Can you do it?" asked the spook. "What will you give me?" said Caleb. "I'll say a good word for you amongst the spooks," said the other. "What good will that do me?" said Caleb. "A good word never did anybody any harm yet," answered the spook. "Very well then, come along," said Caleb. "Gently then," said the spook; "don't make a draught." "Not yet," said Caleb, and he drew the spook very carefully (as one takes a vessel quite full of water) from the seat. "I can't go under pointed arches," cried the spook, as Caleb moved off. "Nobody wants you to," said Caleb. "Keep close to me." He led the spook down the aisle to the angle of the wall where a small iron shutter covered an opening into the flue. It was used by the chimney sweep alone, but Caleb had another use for it now. Calling to the spook to keep close, he suddenly removed the shutter. The fires were by this time burning briskly. There was a strong up-draught as the shutter was removed. Caleb felt something rush across his face, and heard a cheerful laugh away up in the chimney. Then he knew that he was alone. He replaced the shutter, gave another look at his stoves, took the keys, and made his way home. He found his wife asleep in her chair, sat down and took off his boots, and awakened her by throwing them across the kitchen. "I've been wondering when you'd wake," he said. "What?" she said, "Have you been in long?" "Look at the clock," said Caleb. "Half after twelve." "My gracious," said his wife. "Let's be off to bed." "Did you tell her about the spook?" he was naturally asked. "Not I," said Caleb. "You know what she'd say. Same as she always does of a Saturday night." * * * * * This fable Mr. Batchel related with reluctance. His attitude towards it was wholly deprecatory. Psychic phenomena, he said, lay outside the province of the mere humourist, and the levity with which they had been treated was largely responsible for the presumptuous materialism of the age. He said more, as he warmed to the subject, than can here be repeated. The reader of the foregoing tales, however, will be interested to know that Mr. Batchel's own attitude was one of humble curiosity. He refused even to guess why the _revenant_ was sometimes invisible, and at other times partly or wholly visible; sometimes capable of using physical force, and at other times powerless. He knew that they had their periods, and that was all. There is room, he said, for the romancer in these matters; but for the humourist, none. Romance was the play of intelligence about the confines of truth. The invisible world, like the visible, must have its romancers, its explorers, and its interpreters; but the time of the last was not yet come.