that old house to my attention, and told me, though very briefly, the
strange story which I now asked him to give me in greater detail.

His answer satisfied me; and the following pages convey its substance.

Your letter (he wrote) tells me you desire some particulars about the
closing years of the life of Mr. Justice Harbottle, one of the judges of
the Court of Common Pleas. You refer, of course, to the extraordinary
occurrences that made that period of his life long after a theme for
"winter tales" and metaphysical speculation. I happen to know perhaps
more than any other man living of those mysterious particulars.

The old family mansion, when I revisited London, more than thirty years
ago, I examined for the last time. During the years that have passed
since then, I hear that improvement, with its preliminary demolitions,
has been doing wonders for the quarter of Westminster in which it stood.
If I were quite certain that the house had been taken down, I should
have no difficulty about naming the street in which it stood. As what I
have to tell, however, is not likely to improve its letting value, and
as I should not care to get into trouble, I prefer being silent on that
particular point.

How old the house was, I can't tell. People said it was built by Roger
Harbottle, a Turkey merchant, in the reign of King James I. I am not a
good opinion upon such questions; but having been in it, though in its
forlorn and deserted state, I can tell you in a general way what it was
like. It was built of dark-red brick, and the door and windows were
faced with stone that had turned yellow by time. It receded some feet
from the line of the other houses in the street; and it had a florid and
fanciful rail of iron about the broad steps that invited your ascent to