A MYSTERIOUS EXPERIENCE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8866, 17 July 1907, Page 1

A MYSTERIOUS EXPERIENCE.

Mr Ernest Conway Hall, of Manchester, sends to the Grand Magazine the following storv, for-the absolute i truth of which he solemnly Touches. Mr Hall declares that he has not related the story before, as he feared lit would simply bo considered as an invention on his part:— About live years ago I paid a short visit to one of my uncles, a doctor in practice near Heeds. Our bedrooms were side by side, and every morning, when returning from the bathroom, it was his custom to knock at my door and tell mo to get up. One morning, however, he came straight in, and told mo that as he had got no response to his knock before, he had dressed himself and come in to rouse mo more effectually. Ho said that breakfast was quite ready, so I had better look sharp. X got up and began to dress, dispensing with a bath, he talking on various topics the while. I had almost finished when he-left, once more tolling me to hurry. In less than a couple of minutes I followed him to the breakfast room, and found him seated at the table and just beginningjjthe meal. I sat down without speaking, whereupon he looked up as if in surprise, and said with emphasis “Good morning!” I was also surprised, and answered, ‘‘What are you saying that for?” He replied, ‘‘Because I am in the habit of doing so when I meet a person in the morning for the first time.” “But,” I said, “it is not the first time; you were in my room all the. time I was dressing.” “There must he something wrong with you, ’ ’ he said, ‘‘ I knocked at your door as usual, hut X never even looked inside.” ' In this way we argued all through breakfast, he telling me that I must have been dreaming, and I sticking stoutly to my story; but afterwards let the matter drop, although I by no means ceased to think about it. If I merely dreamed that the doctor was in my room, then I must have dreamed that I dressed myself (for he was there all the time), and if that, were so X would wake up and find myself in bed; and, even if I got up and dressed in my sleep (a most improbable thing, for, as far as I know, I never was guilty of sucli freaks), I would have been bound to awake between the time that I thought he left the room and the time I arrived down Stairs Putting all such hypotheses aside as untenable, there remain two other possible explanations: either I was the victim of some extraordinary delusion, or my uncle played a very silly trick upon me, and told a number of downright lies into the bargain. As for the first, I can only say that neither before nor since have I ever experienced anything out of the ordinary run, while I would be more surprised to find my uncle playing practical jotes and tolling lies than if I saw the Archbishop of-Oan. terbury standing on his head in the middle of Leicester Square. What, therefore, is the solution of the mystery?