At midnight the venerable gentleman emerged from his accustomed door. "Here he is!" cried the master of the house, and the servants on the staircase held their ground whilst the old gentleman approached silently, apparently unconscious of their presence. He came close up to the dauntless four, and then, to their amazement, he passed straight through them and reappeared on the other side. Turning round, they saw him calmly gliding up the second flight of stairs, above that on which they were posted. The master of the house, calling on them to follow, gave chase and fired his revolver. The old gentleman took no notice of the shot and entered the empty bedroom as usual, through its closed door. His pursuers opened the door only to find the room empty. A thorough search was made, the wainscoting sounded, the chimney explored, the cupboards turned out, and so forth, but nothing was found but a box containing deeds and some money in a forgotten closet.
The next morning the occupier wrote to the owner of the house to tell her of the discovery of the deed-box, and at the end of his letter, he inquired casually whether any of her relatives had been noted for a peculiarity of dress.
She replied that her grandfather always used to wear, when he was at home and in his study, _a black skull cap_, _a yellow dressing-gown and red slippers_.
After the finding of the deed-box the ghost failed to reappear and the companion phantom cat no longer did gymnastic exercises on the balustrade.
A different cause no doubt lies at the root of the appearance of a phantom cat and of a witch-cat, but it is not always easy to distinguish between the varieties of apparitions. The animals in the following stories bear resemblance to witches' familiars.
A woodman whose dinner was stolen from him daily by a cat made many attempts to waylay the creature. At last he succeeded in catching it in the act of larceny and he chopped off one of its paws, only to find on his return home that his wife had lost a hand.
A Frenchwoman at Billancourt was cooking an omelette when a black cat strayed into the cottage and sat down near the hearth to watch the operation. At the critical moment the cat cried out, "The omelette is done on that side. Turn it." The old woman was indignant at this aspersion on her culinary knowledge and she flung the half-cooked omelette at the cat, striking the animal's face. The next morning she had the satisfaction of seeing a deep red burn on the cheek of an evil-minded neighbour.