not told an absolute falsehood; for, indeed, it
might have come from India in the first instance
for anything I knew to the contrary.

The intelligence I had to communicate was of
a pleasant kind, and Jack proved its exhilarating
effect by ordering oysters for two, and a liberal
supply of stout. When this supper, with the
addition of a tumbler or so of grog, had been
disposed of, I rose to depart.

"Why, old fellow," said the hospitable Jack,
"where have you put your hat and your
umbrella? Bless my soul, here they are! Well,
now, I would have sworn in any witness-box
that you put the umbrella in the corner near the
door, and then clapped your hat on the handle,
and now—lo and behold!—here's the hat on the
floor in the corner next the fireplace, and the
umbrella, with the point inside the hat, and the
handle against the wall!"

The little incident in the parlour of the Jolly
Navigators had too well prepared me for such
freaks on the part of my umbrella, to allow me to
be taken aback. "It is just as I put it, Jack,"
I said, with heedless effrontery. "You put a
little too much brandy in your tumbler, and that,
coming directly after the stout——"

Jack was fully as sober as I was, and as for
the brandy-and-water, it had been offensively
weak.

"I suppose you are right, old fellow,"
interrupted Jack, with a sceptical expression of
countenance. "As the umbrella is a little
damp, it was kind of you to save my carpet, by
using your hat as a basin."

Simpering out some inanity about a friend's
interests being as dear to me as my own, I got
out of the house as well as I could. That I
had not succeeded in obliterating from Jack's
mind the remembrance of the change of corners,
was afterwards made evident enough. Though
he never saw the umbrella again, he never met
me without some question as to its whereabout,
or some reference to the odd occurrence of that
evening.

I had been so much occupied hitherto in
wearing a mask before other persons, that I
really had not had time enough to feel all the
supernatural horror which the possession of the
umbrella should have inspired. Here was an
article placed in my hand, by a mysterious
female figure, that had vanished like a ghost, and
that figure exactly corresponded to the description
of a ghost current in the immediate
neighbourhood! These circumstances began to
impress themselves more forcibly on my mind,
when, on reaching home, I found myself alone
in my bachelor sitting-room. The umbrella,
which rested against my chair, appeared to me
in the light of an unpleasant acquaintance, whom
one cannot conveniently bow out, and whom
one will not press to stop. What should I do
with the umbrella? I did not wish to sit up
with it all night, still less was I inclined to take
it into my bedroom. I looked reflectively at the
umbrella until I almost fancied it looked at me in
return.

At last I bethought me of a little room on
the floor over my bed-chamber, which was
occasionally used for the deposit of lumber. Thither
would I at once take my umbrella, and then
redescend to the sleeping apartment. How
cautiously I carried it! I felt morbidly afraid of
waking the servants, who slept in the chamber
adjoining the lumber-room. I opened the door
with a minimum of noise, that only a burglar
ought to attain. I could almost fancy I was
breaking into my own house.

Lumber, insignificant by day, is ghastly at
night, when illuminated by a single candle, and
seen by a single spectator. The common household
articles, cast aside as unavailable for
immediate use, and huddled together in a fashion
totally at variance with their original purpose,
have a corpse-like appearance, and the shadows
they cast are portentous. A cobweb floating
about in their vicinity is an uncomfortable
phenomenon, and the lonely spectator shrinks
instinctively from anything like contact with that
almost intangible substance, which seems to be
compounded of feathers, gossamer, and nothing,
and goes by the name of "fluff."

I delicately placed the umbrella against a
hamper, richly embroidered with cobwebs, and
crept down to my bedroom: not without
overhearing the whispering voices of the servants,
who had no doubt remarked the unwonted sound
of footsteps.

My dreams were disagreeable enough. The
umbrella seemed to stand before me as a huge many-
armed bat, the gingham forming the texture of
the wings, and a little claw being visible at each
of the corners. Then the bat would assume the
shape of a human skeleton, still many-armed,
like some hideous Indian deity: with this
difference, that the arms were not in a vertical
circle, but were ranged around the neck, like
the spokes of a horizontal wheel. And by a
strange movement the nob had quitted its place,
and stationed itself on the point, where it
became a skull, and hattered its jaws, as if in
unseemly mirth.

I was far from gratified next morning, when
the servant, besides coffee and toast, brought in
the umbrella, with the words, "I think you left
this in the lumber-room?" I dryly answered
"Yes," but I felt that my answer gave no
satisfaction. Though the girl talked of "leaving
the umbrella," she must have known very well
that I put it in the lumber-room on purpose.

"You found the umbrella leaning against the
hamper?" I asked.

"No, it was against the large trunk on the
opposite side," replied the girl.

"Of course," I said. And never did that very
common expression seem less fitted to the context
of a dialogue.

An umbrella which has been lent by a ghost,
which will be dreamed about under the most
unpleasant aspect, and which, without the aid of
human hands, will shift from one corner of a
room to another, is not a desirable possession.
Many were my efforts to get rid of my
gingham treasure, but they were all in vain. I