A GHOST STOHY. 



219 



" Confound it, haven't you got any judgment at all ? Do you want to ruin all the 

 furniture on the place ? Here, here, you petrified fool " 



But it was no use. Before I could arrest him he had sat down on the bed, and 

 it was a melancholy ruin. 



" Now what sort of a way is that to do ? First you come lumbering about the 

 place bringing a legion of vagabond goblins along with you to worry me to death, 

 and then when I overlook an indelicacy of costume which would not be tolerated 

 anywhere by cultivated people except in a respectable theatre, and not even there 



if the nudity were 

 repay me by wreck- 

 ture you can find 

 'And why will you ? 

 self as much as you 

 broken off the end 

 umn, and littered 

 chips off your hams 

 like a marble-yard, 

 ashamed of your- 

 enough t o know 

 "Well, I will not 

 furniture. But 

 I have not had a 

 for a c ent u ry." 

 into his eyes, 

 said, " I should not 



o f your sex, you 

 ing all the furni- 

 to sit down on. 

 You damage your- 

 do me. You have 

 of your spinal col- 

 up the floor with 

 till the place looks 

 You ought to be 

 self — you are big 

 better." 



break any more 

 what am I to do .' 

 chance to sit down 

 And the tears came 

 " Poor devil," I 

 have been so harsh 



with you. And you are an orphan, too, no doubt. But sit down on the floor here 

 — nothing else can stand your weight — and besides, we cannot be sociable with 

 you away up there above me ; I want you down where I can perch on this high 

 counting-house stool and gossip with you face to face." 



, So he sat down on the floor, and lit a pipe which I gave him, threw one of my 

 red blankets over his shoulders, inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmet fashion, 

 and made himself picturesque and comfortable. Then he crossed his ancles, while 



