"A what?" cried the waiter.

"The ghost of Mr. Jenkins," groaned the other, half suffocated from fright.

The reader is left to form the best idea he can of the amazement of poor Joseph. He was so entirely under the dominion of astonishment at what he saw and heard, as to be unable to give utterance to a single word. There he stood as motionless as a statue, and as silent as the grave; circumstances which were not without their effect in proselytizing "William" to the theory of Joseph's ghostship, so potently believed in by the stranger.

"Oh! waiter," gasped the stranger, after a momentary surprise; "oh! waiter, take me out of this room."

And, as he spoke, he clung with more desperate tenacity than ever to the astonished William.

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Would you step into the private room, sir?" inquired the waiter, supporting the stranger by the arm.

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Anywhere, anywhere, to be out of this

room."

William bore the half-lifeless stranger into the private room, in which mine host and hostess were at tea.

"Is the gentleman ill?" inquired Boniface, as he saw the stranger carried in by the waiter. "William, William," cried the landlady, without waiting for an answer to her husband's question, "send for a doctor directly."

"It's not a doctor, ma'am, that the gentleman wants," said the waiter.

"What then's the matter?" inquired the

landlord.

"He's frightened, sir," replied William. "Yes, and no wonder," gasped the stranger. "What could have frightened him in the public room?"

"He says a ghost, sir."

"Ay, a ghost," groaned the stranger.

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Mercy on us!" shrieked the landlady.

At this moment Joseph, having partially

recovered from his confusion, and anxious to receive some explanation of the extraordinary circumstance, walked with the same staid and stately manner as before, into the apartment where the stranger, the waiter, the landlord and lady, were all congregated.

"There he is there's the ghost again! screamed the stranger, as Joseph presented himself.

The landlady shrieked with such tremendous energy, as to bring the whole establishment of servants around her in a moment.

Boniface, who was a man of considerable nerve, and not a very likely person to embrace any supernatural theory, unless on the most convincing evidence, directed a searching gaze to the countenance of Joseph, and then declared his conviction that he was no ghost.

"You're quite right, sir," said Joseph, who had by this time considerably recovered his

composure.

The waiter having heard Joseph thus speak,

and seeing him look like a being of flesh and blood, at length ventured to express his concurrence in the conclusion to which his master had come.

"You're mistaken," gasped the stranger; "it is a ghost. I saw him dead, and lying in his grave-clothes, with my own eyes.”

"Saw me dead and in my grave-clothes?" said Joseph, amazed and half horrified at the thought. "Why, the man must be mad."

"I think so too," said the landlord. "I wish his friends were here to take care of him."

"I wish they were," echoed the waiter. "I wish we were rid of him."

"Do you know the gentleman's name, William?" said Boniface, addressing himself to the waiter.

"He calls himself Mr. Snatchem, sir." "Calls himself what?" exclaimed Joseph; who, in the confusion of the moment, and his altered appearance consequent on the fright, did not before recognise Mr. Snatchem in the

stranger; "calls himself what? Surely it can't be Mr. Snatchem. Mr. Snatchem," con

tinued Joseph, advancing a few paces to where the other was, and extending his hand to him, "what's the meaning of all this?"

Mr. Snatchem shrunk back, shuddering at the idea of contact with a spirit.

"What! Mr. Snatchem, don't you know me?" Mr. Snatchem made no reply.

"Don't you know Mr. Jenkins?"

"Mr. Jenkins is dead, and in his grave," replied Mr. Snatchem, in feeble and faltering

accents.

"Poor man! his intellects are deranged, or he has been seized with some unaccountable temporary delusion," remarked Joseph.

"But what's to be done with him?" said the landlord.

"Hadn't we better commit him to the care of the authorities?" suggested the waiter.

At this moment the sound of the horn announced that the coach was on the eve of