“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, coolly, “you see me under suspicious circumstances, but”—­his voice was drowned in peals of laughter—­such laughter as is heard in asylums for the insane.  The persons about him pointed at the object in his hand and their merriment increased as he dropped it and it went rolling among their feet.  They danced about it with gestures grotesque and attitudes obscene and indescribable.  They struck it with their feet, urging it about the room from wall to wall; pushed and overthrew one another in their struggles to kick it; cursed and screamed and sang snatches of ribald songs as the battered head bounded about the room as if in terror and trying to escape.  At last it shot out of the door into the hall, followed by all, with tumultuous haste.  That moment the door closed with a sharp concussion.  Saylor was alone, in dead silence.

Carefully putting away his pistol, which all the time he had held in his hand, he went to a window and looked out.  The street was deserted and silent; the lamps were extinguished; the roofs and chimneys of the houses were sharply outlined against the dawn-light in the east.  He left the house, the door yielding easily to his hand, and walked to the Commercial office.  The city editor was still in his office—­asleep.  Saylor waked him and said:  “I have been at the haunted house.”

The editor stared blankly as if not wholly awake.  “Good God!” he cried, “are you Saylor?”

“Yes—­why not?” The editor made no answer, but continued staring.

“I passed the night there—­it seems,” said Saylor.

“They say that things were uncommonly quiet out there,” the editor said, trifling with a paper-weight upon which he had dropped his eyes, “did anything occur?”

“Nothing whatever.”

A VINE ON A HOUSE

About three miles from the little town of Norton, in Missouri, on the road leading to Maysville, stands an old house that was last occupied by a family named Harding.  Since 1886 no one has lived in it, nor is anyone likely to live in it again.  Time and the disfavor of persons dwelling thereabout are converting it into a rather picturesque ruin.  An observer unacquainted with its history would hardly put it into the category of “haunted houses,” yet in all the region round such is its evil reputation.  Its windows are without glass, its doorways without doors; there are wide breaches in the shingle roof, and for lack of paint the weatherboarding is a dun gray.  But these unfailing signs of the supernatural are partly concealed and greatly softened by the abundant foliage of a large vine overrunning the entire structure.  This vine—­of a species which no botanist has ever been able to name—­has an important part in the story of the house.