Mr. Wm. C. Gall, M.P.S. of Emsworth, Hants., sent me the following uncanny account of some kind of elemental, which could not be seen but that certainly made its presence known. “The first event happened in June, four years ago. I was typing out some notes for a lecture; my wife Eve, who had been crippled by a stroke and had only very recently returned home from hospital, was resting in an easy chair; her sister was in another chair near her; and Rufus, the dark grey Archangel cat, was lying on another chair near the fireplace. Suddenly he roused himself, started sniffing the air, and then, in a state of nervous excitement began to stalk something invisible to us, across the floor. Whatever it was, he followed it about the room for a while, watched it apparently climb up the side of the chair on which my wife was sitting, cross over her lap, and climb down the other side of the chair. By then I had left the table – which was at the other side of the room where I had been working – in order to watch the queer behaviour of Rufus. The cat continued to stalk the thing across the floor (from the direction of the cat’s gaze we judged its height to be about twelve inches), then round behind the dining-table where it was concealed from his sight owing to the unusual construction of the table-legs. Rufus appeared to be using his sense of smell as well as that of sight, and was continually sniffing the air. He began to creep out to a position from which he could see behind the table-legs, and then refused to approach nearer. I went up to him, speaking gently, as he was very disturbed. He was a picture of nervousness and curiosity, fascinated by what he saw and afraid of it at the same time. Then I tried to coax him nearer to where the creature seemed to be, but he resisted strongly, and as I thrust him closer he suddenly spat and struck out with his paws at something just in front of his face. At the same time, his fur stood up on end, his tail bushed out, and his whole body tensed for action. This was most unusual, for a gentler and less belligerent cat never existed. Nothing would induce him to go nearer, so we left him alone. After a while, the creature appeared to cross back down the room, followed by Rufus at a respectful distance, to a position under a low coffee-table at the far end of the lounge. When I tried once again to get Rufus nearer the creature, he spat as before, leapt high into the air right across the coffee-table, and rushed out of the room which we could not get him to enter again that evening. Of course, we discussed this strange happening between ourselves, but, being unable to account for it, we christened the little creature ‘our gnome’ and left it at that. For a long time afterwards, Rufus was reluctant to use the room. In fact, he refused to go in for a week, and never entered it without a preliminary survey. He would stand in the doorway, sniffing the air and peering cautiously in all directions until he was satisfied that the creature was not present, before he would come into the room. However, no further happenings took place, and with the passing of time he seemed to forget all about it; but very recently there have been similar episodes. My wife is now confined to bed with severe paralysis caused by a second stroke, which occurred shortly after the events of which I have just written. In the circumstances, I naturally spend nearly all my spare time in her bedroom, doing all my work there whenever possible, and I decided to use again my very much neglected typewriter. As well as Rufus, we now have another cat – a little snow-white one rejoicing in the name of ‘Pinkie’ because of the pink tips to her ears and nose. Both cats are fond of sleeping on the carpet at the foot of my wife’s bed, enjoying the warmth of the electric fire, and they were there when I commenced typing. After a while, Rufus began to sniff the air and, with the same mixture of nervous excitement and curiosity as before, watched something go across the room close to the table where I was working, rise into the air to the top of the dressing-table and then float across the intervening space on to the bed where my wife was lying. I went to pick Rufus up and place him on the bed, but at the touch of my hand he leapt into the air and ran out of the open door on to the landing, where he hid behind a chair. Here he stayed, sniffing the air and watching the open doorway most intently. Presently the creature apparently moved out of the room and towards Rufus. He watched it approaching slowly closer and closer and then he spat out and gave a prodigious leap, which carried him over the chair and landed him about four steps down from the head of the stairs, from where he looked apprehensively about him. I went out, picked him up and tried to soothe him. He quietened down, so I carried him into the room and put him on the bed beside Eve so that she could continue to stroke and soothe him. He remained quiet for a little while and then he became alert and appeared to be looking at something climbing up over the end of the divan bed. It approached nearer and nearer to him when, without warning, he gave a great leap into the air right over my wife, to land on the floor on the far side of the bed, from where he watched the creature pass across the room to a waste-paper basket beside the dressing-table. I tried to get him to approach the basket but he resisted strongly and, when forced near it, he again struck out wildly with his claws at something apparently just in front of him, at which he was spitting and growling in an obvious state of fear. My sister-in-law came in just then, and she also tried to coax him to go nearer the waste-paper basket, but without success. Violently he attacked something there that was quite invisible to us, and he seemed only too glad to get out of the room. Pinkie, the white cat, who in all her ways is quite a common little thing compared with the aristocratic and lordly Rufus, looked on in amazement at these strange goings-on, and did not appear to be able to see the creature causing the trouble. However, a parrot, Polyanthus by name, who lives in a cage in the bedroom (she is an African Grey, an intelligent bird and great company for my wife), was an interested spectator of the incident. She obviously saw the creature, watched its comings and goings, and showed fear when it approached the neighbourhood of her cage. It was the best part of a week before Rufus would come into the room and settle down. He was in the room in his usual place when I next brought the typewriter upstairs. At the time he was fast asleep, but after I had been working for some time, he suddenly woke up and evinced all the signs of fear and excitement once again. This time there seemed to be something under the table at which I was working, and at the first opportunity Rufus made his escape from the room. It was only at this third episode that I realised that, whatever the creature was, it seemed to be connected with the typewriter. I do not use it very often, and it is only when the machine is in use that the creature seems to move abroad and disturb the cat. The origin and history of the typewriter I do not know. I purchased it second-hand about ten or eleven years ago from some acquaintances of a friend.” Marjorie Johnson, Seeing Fairies