The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-28

| the sound grew fainter and failed entire | ly I closed the window and sat down again: but even as l did so the myste- rious tones fell on my hearing palmer than before. I listened closely, and though little more than ghost of sound, I still could hear. and quite audibly dis l tinguish, the faint repeated tWanging Of the six open strings of a guitar-so plain ly. indeed. that I instinctively recognized the irritating fact that bol.. the 'E' and ''Ds strings were slightly out of tune. l turned with some strange impulse to my own instrument, and l must leave the reader to imagine the cold thrill of sur prise and fear that crept over me as the startling conviction slowly dawned upon my mind that the sounds came from that unlooked-for quarter. The guitar was leading In its old position in the corner, the face turned to the wall, and although I confess 1t with reluctance. full five min- utes elapsed before I found sufficient courage to approach and pick 1t up; then l came near dropping 1t in abJect terror as a great, fat, blowzy spider ran across my hand and went scampering up the wall What do you think of spiders. any, how? You say "Woohi" I say you don't know anything about spiders.
 I examined first the wall to see if there mignl not be some natural cause for the
 
 the wind. some loosened and vibrating edge of paper, or perhaps bristle pro- truding from the plaster-but l found no evidence that could in anyway afford an answer to the perplexing query. An old umbrella and a broom stood in the cor ner, but in neither of these inanimate ob- jects could I find the vaguest explana- ton of the problem that so wholly and entirely possessed me.
 l could not have been mistaken. It was no trick of fancy-no hallucination. had not only listened to the sounds repeated, over and over, dozen times at least but I ha4 recognized and measured the re- | spective values of the tones, and as turned, half in awe took up the instru- ment and lightly swept the strings, the positive proof for the conviction jarred as discordantly upon my fancy as upon my ears. The two strings, ''E" and ID" 1 were out of tune.
 I will no longer attempt the detail ot ] my perturbed state of curiosity and the l almost dazed condition of my mind; such an effort would at best be vain. But sat down, doggedly. at last; and in a spirit of indifference the most defiant l could possibly assume. I ran the guitar up to a keen, exultant key, and dashed | off into a quickstep that made the dumb old echoes of the room leap up and laugh with melody. I was determined in my own mind to stave off the most unwhole- some influence that seemed settling fog | like over me; and as the sharp twang of the strings rang out upon the night, and | the rich vibrating chords welled up and overflowed the silence like a food the embers of old-time enthusiasm kindled in my heart and famed up in warmth of real delight. Suddenly. In the midst of i this raptuous outburst as with lifted i face I stared ceilingward, my eyes again fell on that horrid spider, madly capering about the wall in a little circumference of a dozen inches, perhaps, wheeling and whirling up and down, and round and round again, as though laboring under some wild, jubilant excitement.
 played on mechanically for a moment, my eyes riveted upon the grotesque an- tics of the insect, feeling instinctively that the music was producing this sing | ular effect upon 1t. I was right; for, as I gradually paused, the gyrations of the | insect assumed a mi-der phase, and as I ceased entirely the great, bloated thing 1 ran far out overhead and dropped sud denly a yard below the cening, and. pendent by its unseen thread, hung sprawled in the empty air above my face, so near could have touched 1t with the lifted instrument. And then. even as l
 
 speculation was suggested to my mind; I arose abruptly, leaned the guitar back | in the corner, took up a book and sat down at the desk, leaving the silence of the room intensified till in my nervous state of mind l almost fancied I could | hear that spider whispering to itself, as 1 above the open pages of the book I watched the space between 1t and the ceiling slowly widening. till at last the ! ugly insect dropped and disappeared be- i hind the sofa.
 I had not long to wait; nor was my l curious mind placed any more at ease. when. at last, faint and far-off sounding as at first, I heard the eerie twanging of | the guitar-though this time l could with some triumphant pleasure note the fact 1 that the instrument was in perfect tune | But to thoroughly assure myself that l could in no way be mistaken as to the mysterious cause. 1 arose and crept eau tiously across the carpet until within easy reach of the guitar. I paused again to listen and convince myself beyond all doubt that the sounds were there pro- duced. There could possibly be no mis- take about it. Then suddenly I caught and whirled the instrument around, and as I did so the spider darted from the keyboard near the top leaped to the broom handle an fled up the wall.
 I tried no more experiments that night, or rather morning-for 1t must have been three o'clock I turned wearily away from the exasperating contemplation of the strange subject. turned down the lamp, then turned 1t up again, huddled myself into a shivering heap upon the sofa, and fell into an uneasy sleep, in which I dreamed that I was spider of Brobdingnagian proportions and lived on men and women instead of flies, and had a web like a monster hammock in which I swung myself out over the street at night and fished up my prey with a hook and line-thought caught more poets than anything else. and was just nibbling warily at my own bait, when the line was suddenly withdrawn, the hook catching me in the cheek tear | ing out and letting me drop back with a sulen plunge into the great gulf of the night. And as found myself, with wild ! ly staring eyes sitting bolt upright on the sofa, I saw the spider, just above my | desk. lifted and flung upward by his magic line and thrown among the the dusky shadows of the ceiling.
 Hays said I to my chum in the early morning as he came in upon me | sitting at my desk, and gazing abstract | ly at an incoherent scrawl of ink upon the scrap of paper lying before me- Hays" said I, whats your opinion of spiders?"
 What's my opinion of spiders?" he | queried, staring at me curiousy.
 | What's your opinion of spiders?' I re- peated with my first infiection-for Hays is a young man in the medical profession and likes point. fact, and brevity. What I mean is this.'' continued. "isn't it gen.