in which he
had come from his trip around the world.

"How tremendously interesting!" he thought, and carefully studied the
apparition from head to foot. He could see where the stuff of his jacket
and the lining joined. He could distinguish the buttons on his waistcoat,
and noted that the last one was off. Rasmussen was holding a clinical
thermometer in his hand with the manner and attitude of a nurse who is
passing unoccupied time at the patient's bed reading.

Frederick noticed that solitude heightens the visionary character of
existence. Without a companion, a man is always condemned to intercourse
with spirits. In his hermitage Frederick had merely to think of someone
to see him in person, talking and acting as in life. This inflammability
of his imagination did not alarm him. He had given George Rasmussen's
apparition cool, careful observation. Nevertheless he was aware that his
spiritual life had entered a new phase.

Before going to bed he went down-stairs to lock up the house. To his
great astonishment, as he opened the door of one of the rooms to close
the shutters, he saw by the light of his candle another phantom as
distinct as the first. He congratulated himself upon no longer having to
depend upon mere hearsay in regard to this psycho-pathologic phenomenon.
At the table four men were sitting playing cards. One of them was looking
on. The men had rather coarse red faces, were smoking cigarettes and
drinking beer. They seemed to be business men. Suddenly Frederick clapped
his hand to his forehead. From the brand and the bottle, he recognised
the beer that had been served on the _Roland_, and these men were those
eternal drinkers and card players who had been in everybody's mouth on
the _Roland_. Shaking his head over the remarkable fact that they should
be sitting in his own house, he returned up-stairs to his warm room.

The daytime, in which he did a great deal of out-of-door work, even
though by himself, had a wholesome effect upon him and brought him back
to reality. On the whole, his opinion of his own condition remained
sound. Nevertheless, as the sickness came creeping over him stealthily,
he failed to notice it. It seemed natural to him that he should reckon
with the apparition of Rasmussan sitting at the foot of his bed and
the four men playing skat in one of his down-stairs rooms as with
realities. In the instinct to counteract the physical crisis, which in a
dull way he felt was approaching, he