honoured in five minutes than even Tellson's,
with all its foreign and home connexion, ever
paid in thrice the time. Then, the strong-
rooms underground, at Tellson's, with such of
their valuable stores and secrets as were known
to the passenger (and it was not a little that he
knew about them), opened before him, and he
went in among them with the great keys and the
feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and
strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last
seen them.

But, though the bank was almost always with
him, and though the coach (in a confused way,
like the presence of pain under an opiate), was
always with him, there was another current of
impression that never ceased to run, all through
the night. He was on his way to dig some one
out of a grave.

Now, which of the multitude of faces that
showed themselves before him was the true face
of the buried person, the shadows of the night
did not indicate; but they were all the faces
of a man of five-and-forty by years, and they
differed principally in the passions they
expressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn
and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance,
stubbornness, submission, lamentation,
succeeded one another; so did varieties of sunken
cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and
figures. But the face was in the main one face,
and every head was prematurely white. A
hundred times the dozing passenger inquired
of this spectre:

"Buried how long?"

The answer was always the same: "Almost
eighteen years."

"You had abandoned all hope of being dug
out?"

"Long ago."

"You know that you are recalled to life?"

"They tell me so."

"I hope you care to live?"

"I can't say."

"Shall I show her to you? Will you come
and see her?"

The answers to this question were various and
contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was,
"Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too
soon." Sometimes, it was given in a tender
rain of tears, and then it was, "Take me to her."
Sometimes, it was staring and bewildered, and
then it was, "I don't know her. I don't
understand."

After such imaginary discourse, the passenger
in his fancy would dig, and dig, dig—now, with a
spade, now with a great key, now with his hands
—to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at
last, with earth hanging about his face and hair,
he would suddenly fall away to dust. The
passenger would then start to himself, and lower the
window, to get the reality of mist and rain on his
cheek.

Yet even when his eyes were opened on the
mist and rain, on the moving patch of light
from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside
retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the
coach would fall into the train of the night
shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple-
bar, the real business of the past day, the real
strong-rooms, the real express sent after him,
and the real message returned, would all be there.
Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would
rise, and he would accost it again.

"Buried how long?"

"Almost eighteen years."

"I hope you care to live?"

"I can't say."

Dig—dig—dig—until an impatient
movement from one of the two passengers would
admonish him to pull up the window, draw his
arm securely through the leathern strap, and
speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until
his mind lost its hold of them, and they again
slid away into the bank and the grave.

"Buried how long?"

"Almost eighteen years."

"You had abandoned all hope of being dug
out?"

"Long ago."

The words were still in his hearing as just
spoken—distinctly in his hearing as ever spoken
words had been in his life—when the weary
passenger started to the consciousness of daylight,
and found that the shadows of the night were
gone.

He lowered the window, and looked out at the
rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land,
with a plough upon it where it had been left
last night when the horses were unyoked;
beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves
of burning red and golden yellow still remained
upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and
wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright,
placid, and beautiful.

"Eighteen years!" said the passenger, looking
at the sun. "Gracious Creator of Day!
To be buried alive for eighteen years!"

SURE TO BE HEALTHY, WEALTHY,
AND WISE.

I HAVE much pleasure in announcing
myself as the happiest man alive. My character
is, I have reason to believe, new to
the world. Novelists, Dramatists, and
Entertainers of an easily-amused public have
never yet, to my knowledge, laid hands on
me. Society is obscurely aware of my existence;
is frequently disposed to ask questions about
me; is always wanting to get face to face with
me, and see what I am like; and has never been
fortunate enough yet to make the desired discovery.
I come forward of my own accord,
actuated by motives of the most purely amiable
sort, to dispel the mists in which I have hitherto
been hidden, and to gratify the public by
disclosing myself. Behold me, then, self-confessed
and self-announced—the long-sought type, the
representative Individual; the interesting Man
who believes in Advertisements.

In using the word Advertisements, I mean
to imply all those public announcements (made
chiefly through the medium of the newspapers)