A STRANGE STORY

My lawyer Mr Turner, is the only man i know who has seen a ghost. He is a quiet even-tempered man whose life is spent in dealing with facts. He is the last person in the world to give way to fantasy. He has a wife and two children of whom he is proud, takes a modest holiday aboard every year and spend his Sunday gardening. He is knowledgeable about art and architecture, though he doesn't pretend to be an expert by any means. It is, therefore, all the more surprising that he should be so insistent about the ghost. It happened, so he says, like this.

He was traveling from London to the North of England by train. It was a mist November evening and the train was half empty. In fact for the first part of the journey Mr Turner had the carriage to himself and sat dozing over the newspaper. However at the first stop a passenger jumped in, slamming the door begin him. HE seemed out of the breath as if he had been running. HE was a striking looking young man with dark, bushy hair and bright intelligent eyes. HE was dressed rather oddly in a long waisted coat with silver buttons, tight trousers and an embroidered waistcoat. Mr Turner did not pay much attention to this because people wear all sorts of extravagant clothes these days and he had long grown accustomed to them.

Presently, the two men got into conversation, as people do on long journeys. Mr turner was interested to discover that the young man was very knowledgeable about Art-in particular portraits. His name, he said, was Joseph Hart, and he was on his way to visit an exhibition. It seemed that he worked in a famous London Art Gallery-a picture restorer, perhaps, thought Mr Turner, for he seemed to know a great certain portraits. When Mr Turner asked his opinion of the portrait of a famous judge by an artist he admired, his companion laughed and said. "He's only a reproduction-a good one i agree but you can't talk to a reproduction." He spoke as though the person in the portrait were still living.

After a while the carriage got hot and steamy and Mr Turner dropped off. He woke just as the train was drawing up at a junction with a grinding of brakes. His companion had disappeared

A few days later, having returned to London, Mr Turner found himself near the Art Gallery. Moved by some impulse, he went in and inquired for Joseph Hart. The attendant direct him to a room devoted to early nineteenth center portraits of well=known men. There was no-one in the room and Mr Turner looked about him. Without knowing quite how he had got there, he found himself standing in front of a full length portrait of a dark young man in tight trousers and an embroidered waistcoat. The eyes smiled at him with hint of amusement. The name-plate at the root of the picture read: Joseph Hart, Gentleman, 1800-1835.