“I must apologize for doubting you the other day.  I have just had, what you declared you saw, corroborated.  A friend of my wife’s was calling here this afternoon, and, on hearing of Mack’s refusal to sleep in the kennel, at once said, ’I know what’s the matter.  It’s the smell.  Mack scents the poison which was used to destroy Zack.  Have the kennel thoroughly fumigated, and you’ll have no more trouble.’  At my wife’s request she went into the yard to have a look at it, and the moment she bent down, she cried out like you did, ’Why, there’s a dog inside—­a terrier!’ My wife and I both looked and could see nothing.  The lady, however, persisted, and, on my handing her a stick, struck at the figure she saw.  To her amazement the stick went right through it.  Then, and not till then, did we tell her of your experience.  ‘Well!’ she exclaimed, ’I have never believed in ghosts, but I do so now.  I am quite certain that what I see is the phantom of Zack!  How glad I am, because I am at last assured animals have spirits and can come back to us.’”

In concluding the accounts of phantasms of dead dogs, let me quote two cases taken from my work entitled The Haunted Houses of London, published by Mr. Eveleigh Nash, of Fawside House, King Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C., in 1909.  The cases are these:—­

The Phantom Dachshund of W——­ St., London, W.

In letter No. 1 my correspondent writes:—­

“Though I am by no means over-indulgent to dogs, the latter generally greet me very effusively, and it would seem that there is something in my individuality that is peculiarly attractive to them.  This being so, I was not greatly surprised one day, when in the immediate neighbourhood of X——­ Street, to find myself persistently followed by a rough-haired dachshund wearing a gaudy yellow collar.  I tried to scare it away by shaking my sunshade at it, but all to no purpose—­it came resolutely on; and I was beginning to despair of getting rid of it, when I came to X——­ Street, where my husband once practised as an oculist.  There it suddenly altered its tactics, and instead of keeping at my heels, became my conductor, forging slowly ahead with a gliding motion that both puzzled and fascinated me.  I furthermore observed that notwithstanding the temperature—­it was not a whit less than ninety degrees in the shade—­the legs and stomach of the dachshund were covered with mud and dripping with water.  When it came to No. 90 it halted, and veering swiftly round, eyed me in the strangest manner, just as if it had some secret it was bursting to disclose.  It remained in this attitude until I was within two or three feet of it—­certainly not more—­when, to my unlimited amazement, it absolutely vanished—­melted away into thin air.

“The iron gate leading to the area was closed, so that there was nowhere for it to have hidden, and, besides, I was almost bending over it at the time, as I wanted to read the name on its collar.  There being no one near at hand, I could not obtain a second opinion, and so came away wondering whether what I had seen was actually a phantasm or a mere hallucination.  No. 90, I might add, judging by the brass plate on the door, was inhabited by a doctor with an unpronounceable foreign name,” etc. etc.