There was nothing to watch. The stranger had disappeared. A disembodied voice said, "Now about that Scotch? If Waukeena light is being torn down tomorrow, I'll be homeless. I've got a lot of haunting to do in the little time that's left. And here we stand, waggin' our jaws."

Jerry's first impulse was to run like hell. "But I don't believe in ghosts!" His voice sounded.

"Of course you do. If you didn't, you couldn't have seen me."

He'd heard of self-hypnosis—apparently the session with the Mayor had upset him. "All right, so you're Wully MacGreggor. Why pick on me?"

"Because I like you," said the ghost. "You said a kind word for me to the City Council and I'd like to do something nice for you."

"If you can't help yourself, I don't see how you're going to be much help to me, but what've I got to lose?" He was too numb to worry further. Ghosts, yet...!

Next morning, Jerry Masterson awoke with a hangover. He dimly remembered floating lights, red, yellow, blue and green. He remembered Captain Wully scaring a couple of lovers with noises the young lady described as "something like bagpipes in an echo chamber." And he seemed to remember that, toward the end of the evening, Gertrude had deigned to materialize—along with a headless black ox and a white stag.

He shook his head and reached for the aspirin. "As of now," he promised himself, "I'm on the wagon." He seemed to recall a snake too, a seven-headed snake with a gleaming carbuncle in the middle head. Permanently on the wagon! A scraping noise came from above. He listened. The noise occurred again. It seemed to emanate from the tower room on the third floor. He raced up the winding Victorian staircase, on up the narrow stairs to the attic, and stopped.

From behind the tower room door, came thin, eerie skirling of bagpipes.

"Hey, you in there," he called.

"Matey!" boomed Captain Wully's voice. "Come on in."

Captain Wully was seated on an old sea-chest, the bagpipes still tucked under his arm. "Hope my practicing didn't disturb you. I play second bagpipe in the banshee band."

"But the scraping noise...."

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