laughter, and the like. Mr. Bull describes
this outcry as calculated to appal the stoutest
heart. But, a gush of words incessantly
pouring forth within the haunted premises,
was even more distressing still. In the dead
of the night, words, words, words—words of
laudation, words of vituperation, words of
indignation, words of peroration, words of
order, words of disorder; words, words,
words—the same words in the same weary
array, of little or no meaning, over and over
again—resounded in the unhappy gentleman's
ears. The Irish accent was very frequently
detectible in these dreadful sounds, and Mr.
Bull considered it an aggravation of his
misery.

All this time, the strangest and wildest
confusion reigned among the furniture. Seats
were overturned and knocked about; papers
of importance that were laid upon the table,
unaccountably disappeared; large measures
were brought in and dropped; Members of Mr.
Bull's family were repeatedly thrown from
side to side, without appearing to know that
they had changed sides at all; other Members
were absurdly hoisted from surprising
distances to foremost benches, where they tried
to hold on tight, but couldn't by any means
effect it; invisible kicks flew about with the
utmost rapidity; the seals of Mr. Bull's
offices, though of some weight, were tossed
to and fro, like shuttlecocks; and, in the
tumult, Mr. Bull himself went bodily to the
wall, and there remained doubled up for a
considerable period. In addition to these fearful
revels, it was found that a forest growth of
cobweb and fungus, which in the course of
many generations had accumulated in the
lobbies and passages of Mr. Bull's old house,
supernaturally sprung up at compound
interest in the lobbies and passages of the new
one, which were further infested by swarms
of (supposed) unclean spirits that took refuge
in the said growth. Thus was the house
further haunted by what Mr. Bull calls, for
the sake of distinction, "Private Bills,"
engendering a continual gabbling and cackling
in all the before-mentioned passages and
lobbies, as well as in all the smaller chambers
or committee rooms of Mr. Bull's mansion: and
occasioning so much spoliation and corruption,
and such a prodigious waste of money, that
Mr. Bull considers himself annually
impoverished to the extent of many hundreds
of thousands of pounds thereby.

At this distressing crisis, it occurred to
Mr. Bull, to send the Members of his family
(as it should be understood, his custom
occasionally is) into the country, to be refreshed
and to get a little change. He thought that
if the house stood empty for a short time, it
might possibly become quieter in the interval;
at any rate he knew that its condition could
not well be worse. He therefore sent them down
to various boroughs and counties, and awaited
the result with some hope. But, now the
most appalling circumstance connected with
this haunted house, and which, within the
compass of our reading, is unparalleled in
any similar case, developed itself with a fury
that has reduced Mr. Bull to the confines of
despair.

For the time, the house itself was quiet.
But, dismal to relate, the great mass of the
Members of Mr. Bull's family carried the
most terrific plagues of the house into the
country with them, and seemed to let loose a
legion of devils wheresoever they went. We
will take, for the sake of clearness, the borough
of Burningshame, and will generally recount
what happened there, as a specimen of what
occurred in many other places.

A Member of Mr. Bull's family went down
to Burningshame, with the intention—
perfectly innocent in itself—of taking a pleasant
walk over the course there, and getting his
friends to return him by an easy conveyance
to Mr. Bull. But, no sooner had this gentleman
arrived in Burningshame, than the
voices and words broke out in every room
and balcony of his hotel with a vehemence
and recklessness indescribably awful. They
made the wildest statements; they swore to
the most impossible promises; they said and
unsaid fifty things in an hour; they declared
black to be white, and white to be black,
without the least appearance of any sense of
shame or responsibility; and made the hair
of the better part of the population stand on
end. All this time, the dirtiest mud in the
streets was found to be flying about and
bespattering people at a great distance. This,
however, was not the worst; would that it
had been! It was but the beginning of the
horrors. Scarcely was the town of Burningshame
aware of its deplorable condition when
the Member of Mr. Bull's family was
discovered to be haunted, night and day, by two
evil spirits who had come down with him
(they being usually prowling about the lobbies
and passages of the house, and other dry
places), and who, under the names of an
Attorney and a Parliamentary Agent,
committed ravages truly diabolical. The first
act of this infernal pair was, to throw open
all the public-houses, and invite the people of
Burningshame to drink themselves raving
mad. They then compelled them, with
banners, and with instruments of brass, and
big drums, idiotically to parade the town,
and fall foul of all other banners, instruments
of brass, and big drums, that they met.
In the meantime, they tortured and terrified
all the small tradesmen, buzzed in their ears,
dazzled their eyes, nipped their pockets,
pinched their children, appeared to and
alarmed their wives (many of them in
the family way), broke the rest of whole
families, and filled them with anxiety and
dread. Not content with this, they tempted
the entire town, got the people to sell their
precious souls, put red-hot money into their
hands while they were looking another way,
made them forswear themselves, set father