The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 147: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 What Shall She Do? the most unexpected moment, and remaining with eyes fixed upon me in the most deadly manner imagina- ble, until we resuscitated her. Both times, Jane, the cook, was called in to administer restoratives, and each time was found diluting herself with tears and murmuring about the ghost. So we went on. “Woman in white!” According to the waiter and cook, there were fifty of them, and not confining themselves to their proper sporting place, my bedroom, they swarmed over and filled the whole house. The cook has seen her wandering around in the out- house at the same instant that the waiter stiffened over her white robes in the dusky parlor. Noises! I myself have sat in the parlor and heard such noises as nothing but Bedlam could have produced, I thought. The whole house would take a streak of groan- ing and creaking and I could have sworn that I heard steps overhead. So matters went on from bad to worse. The servants were continually going around ready primed for a swoon at any minute, and I can vouch for picking up the cook three times in one half hour as she made three unsuccessful attempts to get up into the second floor after dark. It was in vain that I laughed at their fears or removed the cause. If I showed the white woman in the parlor to be a streak of moonlight once, I did so fifty times, and each time the cook only looked incredulous and said: “Yes, I see,” and the “Stiffner” glared at me more fiercely than ever. But when I suggested buying a few rat traps Gomichook (E(o)