“Tight squeeze, wasn’t it?” said he.

“Not in the least,” I replied. “A chimney with a good clear draught might be a little swift for a man of my age and quiet habit of life, but this is a superbly smoky chimney—and the smoke, as you readily understand, gives just that density to the atmosphere in the flue which permits me to float down as gently as a feather. Science, you observe.” I said this airily, for I was beginning to enjoy myself.

“Look here,” said he; “I don’t believe you’re a chimney sweep at all.”

“Your perception is in perfect order,” said I. “I am not a chimney sweep; I am the Master of this College. Now may I ask who you are?”

“Aha,” he cried, “just as I thought. You’re a madman. I don’t believe in humouring madmen. Out you go!”

“As you please,” said I. He looked as though he might become violent, and I wanted time to edge myself toward the bell which calls the Porter. “But before I go, would you have the goodness to tell me who you are?”

“I?” he shouted, working the tremendous eyebrows in a way which I could tell had been effective in quelling undergraduates. “Certainly I’ll tell you. I am Master of this College.”

“Of course,” said I, in my silkiest tones, “but which Master are you?”

“Damn your impudence,” he roared, “I’m the ninth Master.”

I confess this made me feel very unwell. I can’t tell why, but it did, and although I cannot fully describe the sensation, I thought I was going to faint; for a time my consciousness seemed to come and go in rhythmic waves; it was like vertigo, only more intense; I was horribly distressed. But my visitor seemed even more so.

“Stop! Stop!” he cried; “for God’s sake don’t fade and reappear like that. You make me giddy.” And to my astonishment he fell back into my chair and closed his eyes, as white as—well, as white as a ghost. I forgot all about the Porter, and hurried to his side. I put out my hand to feel his brow, just as he opened his eyes. I was amazed to see unmistakable fear in his face, and he shrank from my touch.

“Don’t be afraid,” I said, “I only want to help you.” His voice was faint, and came from a dry mouth. “Who did you say you were?” he asked.

“I am the first Master,” said I. Presumably I was distressed more than I realized, for though I was trying to reassure him my voice sounded sad and eerie, even to myself.

“Then you are—Finch?” he said.

Again the inexplicable malaise overcame me, and I could tell by the fear in his eyes that, to his vision, I must be fading and reappearing again. My sensations were mingled; to be mistaken for Robert Finch—painter, poet, musician, scholar, wit and distinguished diner-out—presented me with an extreme of temptation. Should I risk all, and bask for a moment in another’s glory? But decency prevailed. I denied, reluctantly, that I was Finch.

“Good God! Then—you must be the other fellow who was here, briefly, even before Finch,” said he.

Condemn me, if you will, as an egotist, but in such a situation which of you could have contained his curiosity? “What became of him—that other fellow who was here, briefly, before Finch?’ I asked. And again I heard in my own voice that hollow, eerie note.

He shook his head. “I don’t really know,” he said; “it was whispered that something happened that occasionally happened to professors in those days; something called ‘making a composition with his creditors’, or some quaint phrase of the kind, and he went.”

“Where did he go?” I persisted. The man looked as if he needed fresh air, but the subject was of such importance to me that I put my own interest first.

“I don’t think anybody knew,” he said. “The story that has come down to us is that there was a full-dress enquiry in the Round Room, and it is presumed that the Visitor broke the Master, for when it was over he stumbled out into the quad, and it was seen that the russet rosette had been torn from his gown. After that—well, some said it was the pool, and some said he leapt from the tower, and some said”—here his voice thickened with repugnance—”that he went off and got a job at York. The College behaved very well toward the wife and girls; they kept going by taking in washing for some of the Junior Fellows who couldn’t afford the Coin Wash. Finch was a man of very delicate feeling, by all accounts, and he saw to it. But it was all so long ago…”

My concern for his suffering had considerably abated. Madman he might be, but… “How long ago?” I asked.

“A century, at least,” said he. “Let’s see—this is Christmas, 2063—oh, yes; a full century.”

“A century, and nine Masters?” said I. And again that dreadful sensation, like going down too rapidly in an elevator.

“A distinguished group,” said he, with complacency, “Let’s see—before me—I’m in my fourth year now—there was Kasabowszki for twenty-one years, poor Sawyers who died after three, Taschereau who made it for ten, Gamble for twelve, Meyer for seven, Duruset for fifteen, poor Polanyi—worn out with waiting, really,—for three, and of course Finch’s glorious first mastership of twenty-five long, sunny years. Yes, nine Masters from the beginning.”

I knew I was dealing with a madman. I knew that I was behaving foolishly, but I couldn’t help myself. “Nine, you idiot!” I shouted. “Ten, ten, ten! I was first Master—” I stopped, shocked at what I had said, and hurried to change the dreadful word. “I am first Master,” I screamed.

I suppose I must have looked dreadful, waving my arms and shouting, for he shrank back into my chair, and covered his face with his hands. But I could hear him muttering.

“It isn’t true,” he was whispering to himself. “Reason and science—everything I have lived by—are against it. I’m not seeing a ghost. I utterly deny that I am seeing a ghost.”

These words affected me dreadfully. I felt as though every fibre and bone of my body were melting into something insubstantial, and my control of myself deserted me utterly. “Ghost!” I screamed; “ghost yourself! Ghost yourself!” But even as I protested a fearful sickness of doubt was mounting to my heart. I needed help, not for the madman in my chair but for myself. I pushed the bell for the Porter; that way lay sanity; an old army man would know what to do.

The Porter came faster than I could have hoped—but what a Porter! Six feet four of ex-naval man, a bo’sun if ever I saw one. He went at once to the figure in my chair.

“I heard you shouting, sir,” said he; “anything I can do?”

“Get rid of that thing there by the fireplace,” said the impostor, pointing toward me, but keeping his eyes closed.

“Nothing there, sir,” said the Porter. “Better let me help you out into the air, sir. Terrible smoky fire you have today.”

Nothing there! The words struck me like a heavy blow, and I swooned.

How long it was I do not know, but some time later I was aroused to find Mr. McCracken helping me to my feet.

“Better let me help you out into the air, sir,” he said. “Terrible smoky fire you have today.”

“Yes,” I said; “we must ask the Bursar for some seasoned wood.”