"Have you any idea of the shape of the thing?" I asked him. "So far as I could make out anything, outside the glass, I might describe it as some kind of dog. It seemed to be greyish.... But that as a theory is sheer nonsense. You know that no dog could have made the scratches you saw." One thing still puzzled me. "You say that you put the light out yourself the first time?" "Yes." "And the second?" "There was scarcely time to get any definite impression," he answered evasively. "I was struck down almost at once." "But you had the impression of a dog?" "What does it matter?" he cried, with a sudden change of voice. "I tell you, Haverill, it was like nothing that I can describe!" We sat there for some minutes in silence. I can see now the turn of Lessing's head, the restless movement of his fingers on the chair-arm. It seemed incongruous that we should be sitting here in this common-place room, amid surroundings which spoke so emphatically of the practical routine of life, discussing that which should have branded us both as madmen. It was Lessing who broke the silence first. "What the good?" he said, with a short laugh. "I've told you the whole business, and it's up to you to make what you choose of it. The only conclusion seems to be that we are up against something which is, as you put it, outside the range of experience. Good. But suppose I told you that it wasn't outside the range of experience--that what I saw has been seen by other people, upon independent testimony, ten, twenty, thirty years ago?" I thought of the reporter's story. But there would be time to contribute my data presently, after Lessing had told me all that he knew. "Did you ever hear of an apparition called the Jersey Devil?" he asked. "I don't remember it."