Publisher's Synopsis
This fictional short story is told through the eyes of Dick, a medical student who moves with his cousin Tom into his uncle's unoccupied house on Aungier Street, somewhere in Dublin. After moving in, two young men learn that the house was once occupied by a Judge who hung himself over the railing of the staircase. Dick and Tom begin having nightmares in which they are visited by mysterious floating portraits and the ghost of the judge. On multiple occasions Dick is awoken during the night by footsteps descending from the attic. Upon leaving his room to investigate, he comes upon a "black monster...with great greenish eyes" one night and a "monstrous grey rat" another night. Tom has similarly horrific experiences, so the two decide to move out. At the end of the story readers learn ironically appropriate fate of the house: it was burned down by a demented doctor, then rebuilt and inhabited by an undertaker, someone who prepares dead bodies for funerals.
