Elizabeth was not the most gifted of my students, and the cat’s next words lacked something of the true Gothic rhetoric. “You mean you don’t love your own dear little Pussikins best,” it whined. But Frank was true to the Gothic vein. “This lady is the mistress of my affections, and I acknowledge no Pussikins before her,” he cried.

The cat was suddenly a picture of desolation, of rejection, of love denied. Its vocabulary moved back into high gear. “Thus I relieve thee, my creator. Thus I take from thee a sight which you abhor. Farewell!” And with one gigantic bound it leapt through the window into the quadrangle, and I heard the thundrous sound as the College gate was torn from its hinges.

I know where it went, and I felt deeply sorry for Trinity.

At the College dance last week a young man, a former member of this College, approached me and screamed—in order to be heard above the music—”Are you going to have a Ghost Story for us this year?” I screamed back, “I really don’t know.” “Oh yes you do,” he shrieked; “I’ll bet you’ve got it tucked away in a drawer right this minute.” Then he went to the bar to take something for his throat. Because, as those of you who attend modern dances understand, a conversation of that length, conducted while the band is giving its all, is a considerable strain on the vocal cords.

He had put his finger on a sore spot in my mind. I had no Ghost Story, and my dilemma was an ugly one: on the one hand I didn’t want to disappoint you, and on the other I shrank from meeting any more College ghosts, because it is always an exhausting, and sometimes a humiliating experience.

After all, this College is well advanced in its eleventh year, and we have had a ghost story every Christmas. Ten ghosts, surely, is enough for any college? In a modern building, such a superfluity of ghosts is almost a reflection on the contractors. Or could it, on the other hand, be some metaphysical emanation from the spirit of the Founders who were, to a man, connoisseurs of bizarrerie? Or—and this, I assure you, is where the canker gnaws—is there something about me that attracts such manifestations? There are men who attract dogs. There are men of a very different kind who attract women. Can it be that I attract ghosts?

Pondering thus, I wandered out into the quad, where the music was somewhat less oppressive. Yet, even in the chill air I felt myself a prey to melancholy apprehension. What was it about that music that made it so disturbing? It seemed as if it were the spirit of our time, made manifest in sound. Loud, compelling, insistent yet turbulent; rhythmic, but always threatening to break the bounds of rhythm and rage into some new and fiercely evocative mode. This was music that seemed to be imploring the gods to answer in all the primal, untrammelled majesty of a storm.

The noise mounted to a climax and I heard cheers from within. The moment had come for which modern dancers wait in worshipping expectation; the percussion man was going to perform a solo. The banging, crashing and rattling he produced was sheer sound, unhampered by any suggestion of a tune or a tone. It was heaven-storming music, and I felt myself yielding to it. My nerves were fiercely alert.

As I walked toward the College gate my glance rose, and at once I knew that something was amiss. Or, rather, was missing. Where was the great bull’s head which normally presides over the exit from the Quad? Not in its place? Impossible. It must be a delusion caused by the excellent supper at the dance. But—where was the Bull? “Bah! Humbug!” I said to myself as I stood looking out into Devonshire Place. The December wind that had been sweeping through it grew, in a matter of seconds, into a whirlwind. Dust, twigs, debris of all sorts was whirling in this tempest; some of it swept toward me and I became aware that a mass of newspaper was dashing itself against the gate, and might well blow through it. I like the quad to be tidy, and I pushed it away with my foot. To my amazement, it resisted, with a power that wind alone could not explain. I kicked at it and—how am I to tell you?—it seemed to give a cry, in an almost human voice. The sound of the percussion solo from the Hall became more demanding in its intensity, and I lost my self-possession. I kicked and pushed at the mass of newspaper with hands and feet, and the more I fought the fiercer it became, until at last it forced itself through the bars of the gate, and stood—yes, stood!—before me.

“Thing of evil,” I cried—and even as I spoke I knew that I had once again slipped into the rhetorical manner of speech which these spectres always impose upon me—”Thing of evil, what would you here? Whence, and what are you?”

The mass of newspaper appeared to be winded by our struggle, and its reply, though audible, was incomprehensible to me. But the tone was unmistakably that of a woman’s voice.

“Speak up!” I demanded.

The mass of newspaper raised one of its outlying rags of newsprint and pointed toward what would have been, in a human figure, its head.

I leaned down for a closer look, because the figure was considerably shorter than I. At its top, which was twirled up into a sort of point, I was able to make out Toronto Star, February 1, 1972.

“You are the Toronto Star?” said I, half in fear, half in derision, as academics usually speak when they are dealing with newspapers.

The figure nodded its head, then pointed with what seemed to be its Homemakers’ Section toward a headline which was at the place where, if it had indeed been a woman, its bosom would have been found. I put on my reading spectacles and peeped delicately at its bosom. The words there were familiar and made me recoil. They read: The Ugly Spectre of Sexism Lurks at Massey College.

I remembered that headline. It was on February 1, 1972, that the Toronto Star had printed a letter from a young woman who was aggrieved by what she considered the indefensible discrimination of this College against her sex. Not only was this place manifestly elitist, she said, but it was sexist as well, and in the modern world, this was not to be endured. I looked at the bundle of newspaper again; there was something feminine about its general outline, certainly, but what was it, and what did it mean?

“Frankly, you don’t look like The Star—” I began. But the creature had found its voice and burst out in an excited squeak.

“None of that!” it said. “I know you sexists. Next thing you’ll be telling me I’m too pretty to be a great national daily. I’ve come to do a colour story on the Ugly Spectre of Sexism that lurks at Massey College. Where do your spectres usually lurk? Point the way and then leave me alone, you old sexist.”

“I resent being called a sexist,” I said, with dignity. “But you are a guest here, and I shall treat you with courtesy regardless of your rudeness to me. We have no spectres but I shall gladly offer you some spirits. I could do with a double Scotch, myself.”

“That’ll be fine,” said the strange visitor, in a somewhat mollified tone. I was about to go to the bar for drinks, but something happened that made it clear that however ragged and rubbishy its appearance, I was in the presence of a supernatural being, and that the atmosphere was strangely fraught. Suddenly, from nowhere, two double Scotches were hovering in the air before us, and I gestured to my companion to accept one. She immediately proved that, ghost or not, she belonged to the newspaper world by taking that which my practised eye told me was slightly the bigger. After a hearty swig had disappeared into the folds of newspaper my strange companion spoke again, in a tone that betrayed a little self-doubt.

“This is Massey College?” it squeaked.