inly never told me so. It is that beastly
Thumbless Hand, no woman could have stood it, not to mention the
chance of catching cold when it pulled the blankets off."

"What on earth are you talking about? I can understand a man attended
by black dogs that nobody sees but himself. The Catholics tell it of
John Knox, and of another Reformer, a fellow called Smeaton.
Moreover, it is common in delirium tremens. But you say Bolter didn't
see the dogs?"

"No, not so far as he told me, but I did, and other fellows, when with
Bolter. Bolter was asleep; he didn't see anything. Also the Hand,
which was a good deal worse. I don't know if he ever saw it. But he
was jolly nervous, and he had heard of it."

The habits of the Beach-comber are absolutely temperate, otherwise my
astonishment would have been less, and I should have regarded all
these phenomena as subjective.

"Tell me about it all, old cock," I said.

"I'm sure I told you last time I was at home."

"Never; my memory for yarns is only too good. I hate a chestnut."

"Well, here goes! Mind you I don't profess to explain the thing; only
I don't think I did wrong in telling the young woman, for, however you
account for it, it was not nice."

"A good many years ago there came to the island, as a clerk, un nomme
Bolter, English or Jew."

"His name is not Jewish."

"No, and I really don't know about his breed. The most curious thing
about his appearance was his eyes: they were large, black, and had a
peculiar dull dead lustre."

"Did they shine in the dark? I knew a fellow at Oxford whose eyes
did. Chairs ran after him."

"I never noticed; I don't remember. 'Psychically,' as you
superstitious muffs call it, Bolter was still more queer. At that
time we were all gone on spirit-rapping. Bolter turned out a great
acquisition, 'medium,' or what not. Mind you, I'm not saying Bolter
was straight. In the dark he'd tell you what you had in your hand,
exact time of your watch, and so on. I didn't take stock in this, and
one night brought some photographs with me, and asked for a
description of them. This he gave correctly, winding up by saying,
'The one nearest your body is that of ---'"

Here my friend named a person well known to both of us, whose name I
prefer not to introduce here. This person, I may add, had never been
in or near the island, and was totally unknown to Bolter.

"Of course," my friend went on, "the photographs were all the time
i