[Footnote 9:  In all probability she was the founder of Chicken-Itza,
  the capital of Yucatan.]

  [Footnote 10:  Types of Elementals still to be met with in certain
  localities (vide Byeways of Ghostland, published by Rider & Son).]

  [Footnote 11:  Compare Egyptian re.]

[Footnote 12:  Maitland raises the question as to whether Barrahneil was the ancestor of Niall of the Nine Hostages.  Of this there is every possibility, since many Atlanteans undoubtedly escaped to Ireland, carrying with them the knowledge of Black Magic—­to which might be traced the Banshee and other family ghosts.]

  [Footnote 13:  Probably a Vice Elemental.]

  [Footnote 14:  All subsequent works dealing with Black Magic were
  founded on it.]

  [Footnote 15:  Closely allied to deadly nightshade, and known in
  botany as Circaea.  It is found in damp, shady places and was used
  to a very large extent in mediaeval sorcery.]

CHAPTER III

LEARNING TO SIN

Messrs. Kelson and Curtis did not live in Pacific Avenue where the Popes hold sway, nor yet in California Street where the Crockers are wont to entertain their millionaire friends.  Where they lived, there were no massive granite steps flanked with equally massive pillars—­such as herald the approach to the Nob Hill palaces; no rare glass bow-windows looking out on to flower bedecked lawns; no vast betiled hall, with rotundas in the centre; no highly polished oak staircases; no frescoed ceilings; no tufted, cerulean blue silk draperies; and no sweet perfumery—­only the smell, if one may so suddenly sink to a third-class expression—­only the smell of rank tobacco and equally rank lager beer.  No, Messrs. Kelson and Curtis resided within a stone’s throw of the five cent baths in Rutter Street—­and that was the nearest they ever got to bathing.  Their suite of apartments consisted of one room, about ten by eight feet, which served as a dining-room, drawing-room, study, boudoir, kitchen, bedroom, and—­from sheer force of habit, I was about to add bathroom; but as I have already hinted cold water on half-empty stomachs and chilly livers is uninviting; besides, soap costs something.  Their furniture was antique but not massive; nor could any of it be fairly reckoned superfluous.  All told, it consisted of a bedstead (three six-foot planks on four sugar cubes; the bedclothes—­a pair of discarded overalls, a torn and much emaciated blanket, a woolly neck wrap, a yellow vest, and the garments they stood in); a small round and rather rickety deal table; and one chair.  Of the very limited number of culinary utensils, the frying-pan was by far the most important.  Its handle served as a poker, and its pan, as well as for frying, roasting and boiling, did duty for a teapot and a slop-basin.  They had no crockery.  They had only one thing in abundance—­namely, air; for the lower frame of the window having long lacked glass in it, a couple of pages of the Examiner, fixed in it, flapped dismally every time the wind came blowing down 216th Street.