Euston Square station. I, with a dignity which
would convince most people of my majority,
drew myself up to my full height (and I sit
high, though not at all on account of the shortness
of my legs), and replied that I was glad
that so short an acquaintance had been
sufficient to assure him of my freedom from any such
ridiculous superstition.

"Ha!" said the stranger, with a strong nasal
twang, "so that's how the land lies, is it?
Wal! Then I reckon that the sooner you begin
to believe, the better, and if you've got such a
thing as a cigar about you, I'll commence your
eddication at once."

"Thank you," said I; " here is a cigar, but I
prefer my present state of ignorance and
incredulity."

"Very well rounded that, for a youngster,"
retorted my tormentor. " Dr. Johnson didn't
make his dixonary for nothin', I see; but still,
as long as you don't believe in ghosts, your
eddication ain't the thing quite, neither."

By this time he had selected the biggest cigar
from my case, had lighted it with a match which
he struck on his trousers, and had begun to
smoke it, rolling it from one side of his mouth
to the other, and regarding me with a cool
impertinence which stifled me with indignation.

"Wal!" he continued, after a puff or two,
"it's a rank Britisher, is this cigar; but it was
the best you'd got, so I won't grumble. Now
stick another in your own. mouth and then I'll
begin your eddication."

I had intended to smoke, and I was not to be
stopped by any false notion of dignity: so I
did as he requested, and resigned myself to my
fate. No sooner had I done so than he
exclaimed, "Now that's what I call comfort!"
smacked his legs and his fingers, and evinced
such a high state of uncouth hilarity, that I began
to be afraid I was locked up with a lunatic.

"Ha!" he cried, snapping his fingers, "I'll
make your hair stand on end, I will, spite of
all your pomatum and bandoline —and your
legs won't hurt by a little stretching neither.
Air you ready?"

Hoping at least to draw off his attention from
my personal appearance, by inducing him to
begin a story at once, I nodded, and he
commenced:

"Wal, I'm only a-thinkin' which of 'em it
shall be. I've got one story as kills outright;
but I want to cross to-night, and being found
with a corpse might be inconvenient, so I'll
let you off that. I've another, as mostly brings
on fits; but this carriage is narrow for fits. And
I've another, as completely takes away the
breath, 'cept the story's told slow, which I ain't
clever at. And I've another well, you're a
good-natured fellow, you air, and so I'll tell it
you; it's only dangerous in heart disease."

"My heart is perfectly sound," I said, in as
steady a voice as I could assume.

"Wal, then! Here goes. About two months
ago I was travelling by express from Dublin to
Cork meanin' to cross to my native land in a
sudden bust of affection towards an old uncle
o' mine who I heard was about to leave this
world for a better; and I was a-moralising on
the shortness of life, and consoling myself with
reflexions on the admirable arrangements of
Providence, which don't allow rich uncles to
take their ile springs with 'em, when I had the
most extraordinary adventure with a faymale
ghost that I remember in all my experience.

"I was all alone in the compartment with my
luggage, which consisted of a male portmanteau,
a faymale trunk and a bandbox as I had
promised my old woman to bring her some finery
from Paris. The bandbox was none of your
pasteboard flimsies, but a true Parisian, made
of shingle; so I wrapped it up in my traveling
rug. I put it under my head, and I went
fast asleep. I'm a sound sleeper. Many a
time have I gone to sleep when poggy-fishing,
and slept all night in spite of the bullfrogs
a-leaping and a-croaking all over me, but I never
had such a restless nap in my life as in that
compartment. First of all I had a tickling in
my nose, as if a drunken centipede was a-trying
to open his door with a toothpick. In the
ensuing irritation I lifted my head, when—
whish! went my travelling nig. Still, I didn't
rouse up definite, but snored on. Presently,
the irritation increased, and I lifted my head
again, when, away went bandbox and all. I
said to myself, ' Now they'll be satisfied, I hope'
(for I knew it was ghosts, fast enough, being
used to 'em); and sure enough, whatever it
was left me alone awhile; I only heard a noise
in my sleep like a mouse in the faymale trunk.
Presently, however, I come aware of pinchin*
going on in various portions of myself. I am
averse to pinchin', natural, and I twitched and
twitched, determined to sleep it out. But the
pinchin' increasin' from the desultory to the
vicious, I knew it wasn't any good, so I opened
my eyes and sat up, and, bless my soul, if there
wasn't a faymale figger of exceeding beauty
dressed complete in my wife's garments. Parisian
bonnet with yaller ribbons, bright-green velvet
jacket trimmed with red gimp, blue slippers and
pink silk stockings, complete! And if I didn't
stare, why this cigar's tobacco, that's all!"

He paused a moment, and looked at me with
a most evil expression of enjoyment; I let his
impertinence pass without the smallest remark,
and he continued:

"Wal, I wasn't skeered a fig, but looked at
her fixed, took out a pipe (I smokes pipes
usual), and asked her if she objected to my
lightin' up? 'Not a bit,' she answered, quite
pleasant, and she smiled, opening her lips,
through which I saw the back of the carriage."

"The back of the carriage?"

"Yes. Ghosts is hollow, and got no teeth, no
bone?, no hair, nothin' but flesh and skin, and
only the very outside o' that: a sort of nothing
without innards. If she hadn't had my wife's
bonnet on, her head, with the compartment light
over it, would a looked like the globe of a paraffine
lamp afore it's lit; but when the mouth's shut,
you can't through; it's only semi-transparent,
like ground glass, and if it hadn't been one of