Given that the author is Jerome K. Jerome, it isn't surprising that this is engagingly written. It starts with a striking episode of a man meeting an old acquaintance he hasn't seen for many years in the street and talking with him for some time, only to find out later that the man he thought he was talking to has been dead for some time. This spurs some speculation about life after death and whether a spirit might be able to return in some form to complete an important task left unfinished. And thus the tale of the "man of science" who finds himself faced with such a spirit. I especially liked the commentary of the friends in the story about why spirits would even want to return, for example: "You mean that you cannot understand why a spirit, not compelled as we are by the exigencies of society, should care to spend its evenings carrying on a laboured and childish conversation with a room of abnormally uninteresting people." I take it that Jerome and Conan Doyle would not have seen eye-to-eye on spiritualism! ( )