Some believe that General Meigs's spirit is the ill-tempered rider on horseback who comes to the old building-particularly during periods of renovation. They seem to think that a man of such strong will would certainly possess a spirit capable of watching over his cathedral to insure its preser-vation.

The transparent rider on horseback has not been the only spirit encountered in the old Pension Building. Late one summer night in 1972 one of the security personnel was reading a newspaper behind the information desk on the ground level when he noticed a man in a light colored suit with a peculiar walk moving quietly toward the stairway. Some of his fellow workers told a lawyer that the guard followed the strange looking man to the third floor. Just as he got close enough to ask the man how he had penetrated the locked doors, and what his business was, the man turned. The watchman opened his mouth to speak, but out came a nightmarish yell. He covered his face and then ran wildly from the building.

Sometime later that night, I was told, a patrolling police car noticed a man who appeared to be in a daze walking down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. Checking his identification, the officers learned where the man worked. Within an hour or so, the watchman's supervisor and a doctor were talking with him. Much of what he said, however, was incoherent. He remained in a state of shock and often broke into uncontrollable sobs. About all the doctor could get out of the watchman was that he had looked at a man with no eyes in his head, and had seen the fires of hell and smelled the stench of the dead.