at every one of which the set smile on their
faces faded into a mingled expression of acute
bodily pain and awful terror lest they should fall
down: while, on a string like larks, or a rope
like onions, there swayed to and fro across the
proscenium, a dozen of the stoutest and most
unimaginative naked Cupids that ever got loose
from a valentine, or were made by a property-
man.

As the act-drop fell upon this scene, which in
itself represented something not to be met with
in everyday life, some distrust was expressed in
my neighbourhood lest there should be nothing
more ghostly than we had just witnessed, but
the old lady with the umbrella set us to rights
by recovering suddenly from a severe attack of
rickets, and exclaiming, "Them ghosts! Oh no,
sir! In the next ack we shall see her, and which
the music will play up for us to give attention."
So accordingly, when the fiddles wailed, and the
trombone and clarionet prostrated themselves
figuratively in the dust, I looked with all my
eyes, and saw the curtain rise upon the Baronet's
apartment, which was the most singularly
constructed room I ever beheld. The portion of the
floor nearest to us was perfectly flat, as is the
case with most floors, but after about three feet
of flatness there rose in its centre, and stretching
from side to side, a long, sloping, green mound,
in military language a "glacis," up which the
Baronet had to walk when he wanted to proceed
towards the back of the apartment, where all the
chairs, tables, and furniture generally had
withdrawn themselves, and up which he himself
climbed, as though M. Vauban had taken the
place of Mr. Cubitt, and as though outworks
and entrenchments were as common in London
drawing-rooms as lounging-chairs and grand
pianos.

On the top of this entrenchment stood, on
either side, two thick dumpy pillars, supporting
a heavy piece of masonry, which joined them
together at the top, and which looked like a
portion of the ruins of the Temple of the Sun at
Baalbek seen through the wrong end of the
opera-glass: or, to use an illustration nearer
home, like the front of the catacombs of Kensal-
green or Highgate cemeteries. Between these
pillars was a hazy vista into which the Baronet
walked, and seating himself on a stool in the
corner, so as to be quite out of the way,
commenced informing us (without any apparent
necessity for the statement) of his disbelief in
all supernatural appearances, and of his thorough
contempt for Death—ha! ha! The second of
the two vocal double-knocks given by him in
ha! ha! had scarcely been given, when there
appeared in the middle of the empty space
behind the piliars a stereoscopic skeleton exactly
like that which dances in the Fantoccini—so like,
that one looked for the string which guides that
puppet's movements (and which, of course, in
the present instance, was not to be seen), and
expected him momentarily to fall to pieces and
re-unite in a comic manner. At this sight the
Baronet appeared a little staggered; he said,
"Ha! do I then behold thee?" and retreated
several paces on his heels, but recovering
himself, exclaimed, "'Tis a dream, an ill-yousion!"
and advanced towards the skeleton, which
disappeared, to return immediately armed with a
dart, or harpoon, with which it made several
well-intentioned but harmless thrusts at the
Baronet, who appeared immensely flabbergasted
by the harpoon, and begged piteously to be
spared. Either the skeleton was moved by the
appeal or he had work somewhere else, for he
disappeared again, and no sooner was he gone
than the Baronet so plucked up that he declared
he defied Death altogether, and was beginning
to be offensively joyous, when in the place where
the skeleton had been, appeared the ghost of the
widow in her shroud! No mistake about it
now! There she was, a little foreshortened, a
little out of the perpendicular, leaning
forward as though accustomed to a cramped and
confined space, and not daring to stand upright!
For the Baronet this was, to use a vulgar
metaphor, a "corker." He rubbed his head, but
there was nothing there; he tried a taunt, but the
ghost answered him with deep-voiced briskness;
he rushed towards her, and rushed right
through her! Finally, he picked up from the
table, where, as we know, they always lay in
libraries, a long sword, with which he aimed a
very unskilful blow at his visitant. The sword
passed through the ghost, who was apparently
tickled, for it exclaimed, "Ha! ha!" and
disapeared, and the Baronet fell exhausted in the
very spot where the ghost had been! Up went
the lights, down went the curtain, and the
audience gave one great gasp of relief, and
pretended they hadn't been frightened—which they
had!

Unquestionably! undoubtedly! The skeleton
had been a failure; ribalds in the pit had mocked
at him—had given tremulous cries of feigned
terror—shouted "O-oh! m—y!" and pretended
to bury their heads in their jacket-collars; boys
in the gallery had called upon him to dance, and
had invited their friends to "look at his crinoline;"
the arm of the youth in front of me
tightened round the waist of the maiden with
evident conveyance of the idea that that alone
could them part; and the old lady with the
umbrella had considered him a "mangy lot." But
the ghost was a very different matter; when it
appeared, not a sound in the pit, not a whisper in
the gallery; all open-mouthed, eager, tremulous
excitement! The old grandmother clasped the
umbrella like a divining-rod, and muttered a
hoarse "Deary—dea—ry me!" the mother let the
infant fall flat and flaccid on her lap, the youth's
arm unbent, and the maiden, rising stiffly three
inches from her seat, said, "Go'as!" and
remained rigid. Only one sound floated on the air,
and that was emitted by a French gentleman,
with more buttons on his waistcoat than I ever
saw on a similar amount of cloth (how on earth
did a foreigner penetrate to Hoxton?), who