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104 MISS RUSSELL'S GHOST.

I live with Catchings and Hopkins, two other newspaper men. We have the fifth flat in a large six-story house.

Until last Friday every flat in the house was occupied. We have lived here for more than a year, but knew the name of but one other tenant, a Miss Russell, an actress, who occupied the fourth flat. Although we knew her name, none of us had ever seen her.

My work keeps me at the office until 2 o'clock in the morning. One morning as I came home I met the janitor going out for Miss Russell's physician. She had fallen ill. Several times after that, one or other of us met the physician coming to the house or just going away, and gradually we fell into the habit of asking the janitor about Miss Russell's condition. At first she seemed to respond readily to treatment, but there came a time when the janitor or the physician could not report any change, either for better or worse.

"Just about the same, sir," the janitor would say when I asked him. "She doesn't seem to get on."

For about four weeks now an unusual series of events has been keeping all three of us out of the house for two or three hours more than customary at night. Several times it has happened that although I did not get home until 4 o'clock in the morning I was the first one in. I distinctly remember that it was so on Saturday three weeks ago. I had been reading a book which puzzled and interested me in no small degree. After I had eaten my supper, I sat in the parlor smoking my pipe, finishing a baffling chapter.

I was aroused from my absorption in the book by sudden and violent banging of the door between kitchen and dining-room. For a few seconds I sat still, thinking that one of the other boys had come in and had slammed the door by accident. But I heard no one move, nor, indeed, was there another sound until, without warning, the slamming of the