“Within ten minutes of my arrival he went to bed and within an hour I finished my dinner and retired for the night.

“It was rather stuffy and the bed was damp as I was perspiring freely; and consequently I was not feeling inclined to sleep.

“A little after midnight I felt that there was somebody else in the room.

“I looked at the closed door—­yes there was no mistake about it, it was my wife, my wife who had been dead these eighteen months.

“At first I was—­well you can guess my feeling—­then she spoke: 

“’There is a cool bed-mat under the bedstead; it is rather dusty, but it will make you comfortable.

“I got up and looked under the bedstead—­yes the cool bed-mat was there right enough and it was dusty too.  I took it outside and I cleaned it by giving it a few jerks.  Yes, I had to pass through the door at which she was standing within six inches of her,—­don’t put any questions; Let me tell you as much as I like; you will get nothing out of me if you interrupt—­yes, I passed a comfortable night.  She was in that room for a long time, telling me lots of things.  The next morning my mother enquired with whom I was talking and I told her a lie.  I said I was reading my novel aloud.  They all know it at home now.  She comes and passes two nights with me in the week when I am at home.  She does not come to Calcutta.  She talks about various matters and she is happy—­don’t ask me how I know that.  I shall not tell you whether I have touched her body because that will give rise to further questions.

“Everybody at home has seen her, and they all know what I have told you, but nobody has spoken to her.  They all respect and love her—­nobody is afraid.  In fact she never comes except on Saturday and Sunday evenings and that when I am at home.”

No amount of cross-examination, coaxing or inducement made my friend Haralal say anything further.

This story in itself would not probably have been believed; but after the incident of “His dead wife’s picture” nobody disbelieved it, and there is no reason why anybody should.  Haralal is not a man who would tell yarns, and then I have made enquiries at Haralal’s village where several persons know this much; that his dead wife pays him a visit twice every week.

Now that Haralal is 500 miles from his village home I do not know how things stand; but I am told that this story reached the ears of the Bara Saheb and he asked Haralal if he would object to a transfer and Haralal told him that he would not.

I shall leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.

THE BOY WHO WAS CAUGHT.

Nothing is more common in India than seeing a ghost.  Every one of us has seen ghost at some period of his existence; and if we have not actually seen one, some other person has, and has given us such a vivid description that we cannot but believe to be true what we hear.