"I was on a visit to my two sons, who live at No. 37, M—— Square, Chelsea. On the first night of my visit I slept in a room on the third floor facing the Square. I have no knowledge of the science you profess, and no personal faith in supernatural apparition, but the spectacle I witnessed was so extraordinary that, by the light of your thrilling narratives, it looks as though I may have been sleeping in a room that has been the scene of a tragedy.
"The room was not utterly dark, and some light penetrated from the lamps in the Square, but as I lay with my face to the wall, all in front of me was dark.
"I fell asleep, and remained so for an hour or more, when I suddenly awoke with a great jerk, and found confronting me the most awful apparition you can imagine. It was a dwarfed, tubby figure with a face like a pig, perfectly naked, in a strong bright light. The whole figure resembled in appearance the scalded body of a pig of average size, but the legs and arms were those of a human being brutalised, male or female I could not say. In ten or fifteen seconds it vanished, leaving me in a profuse perspiration and trembling, from which I did not recover for some time. But I slept off the rest of the night.
"When the landlady came to call me (she slept on the third floor back) she pointed out that a picture on the connecting door had fallen down between my bed and the next room. Doubtless it was the fall of the picture that waked me up with a start. But what about the apparition? I can only assign it to some occult cause.
"I remain, dear Sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"'I. Walton.'"
In this instance it is, of course, very difficult to tell whether the phenomena is Subjective or Objective. Presuming it to be Objective, which I am inclined to believe it was, then it was either the earth-bound spirit of some particularly vicious person who was in some way connected with the house, or else it was a Vice Elemental attracted to the house either by the foul thoughts of some occupant or by some murder formerly committed there.
Writing to me again on June 13th, 1910, Mr. "I. Walton" says:—
"Dear Sir,
"I am quite willing that you should find a place for my experience in your forthcoming book. I think I omitted one detail of the spectre: it had bright yellow hair worn in ringlets extending barely as far as the shoulders.
"Yours faithfully,
"'I. Walton.'"