Page:St Andrews Ghost Stories (1921).djvu/48

40 thing. I can detach my personality, can you?"

"Most certainly not," I said, "what the deuce do you mean?"

"Mean," he said, "I mean my spirit can float out of my body at will. My spirit becomes a sort of mental baloon. I can then defy destiny."

"How in thunder do you manage to do it anyway?"

"By practice, sir, of course. When my spirit floats out of my body, I can see my own old body sitting in my arm-chair and an ugly old wreck of a body it is. It is bad for one, I admit; it is very weakening. Another thing may happen; another wandering spirit may suddenly take possession of one's body, and then one's own spirit can't get back again, and it becomes a wandering spirit, and is always trying to force itself into other people's bodies. Then one's spirit gets into a mental bunker, you see."

"I don't see a bit. It is most unpleasant. Tell me about ghosts you have seen, and about that dagger you gave Major Montrose."

"Oh! so then you are not interested in eliminated personality?"

"Not a bit," I said, "I don't know what it is. Tell me about that dagger for a change."

"Oh! ah! Well, the dagger Robert of Montrose gave me proved of great use to my old friend, Bob Montrose, on many occasions. It had a wonderful power of its own. Once he got into a broil with a lot of Spanish fellows one night, and as he was unarmed at the time he was in a remarkably tight corner. Suddenly something slipped into his hand, and, by Jove, sir, it was the dagger, and that dagger saved his life. Another time he found himself in an American train with a raving lunatic, and if it had not been for the protecting dagger he'd have been torn limb from limb. After that he took it everywhere with him."

"Where is it now?"

"Well, there's an odd thing if you like. Bob died in the Isle of France, where Paul and Virginia used to be. He was killed by a fall, and is buried there. He left the dagger to me in