A VERITABLE uHOST. 205 



usually bestowed upon any reasonable explanatioD 

 of a ghost story. My scornful laugh was severely- 

 frowned down, and I was informed by one of the 

 wiseacres that the groans having evidently come 

 from my berth, and no where else, portended some 

 an heard of accident to myself. So eagerly does 

 ignorant humanity swallow the most egregious 

 humbug, if there is only something supernatural 

 about it, that of the sixteen men who had proba- 

 bly heard the same groans dozens of times in the 

 boat, not one could now be convinced, by reason 

 or ridicule, that those in question owed their ex- 

 istence to a natural cause. 



I found myself regarded as a doomed man ; and 

 certain of the more friendly disposed privately 

 advised me to prepare my mind for the approach- 

 ing calamity, and even offered to share their berths 

 with me, not considering it prudent that I should 

 sleep in the haunted bed. If my excellent ship- 

 mates before cordially hated me for my unsocia- 

 ble spirit, they were now doubly bitter against 

 me on account of my present doubts; and one 

 poor fellow went so far as to impugn my faith in 

 the existence of a Deity, on the ground of my 

 scepticism on the subject of ghosts. 



1 joined with the cook in laughing at their fool- 

 ish fears, (which, by the way, procured me the 

 present of a huge piece of pie from that worthy, 

 prho declared me to be a "good fellow"), and 

 slept scundly as ever before in my haunted bed 

 place. 



