with its downy mantle, was covering all fret and fatigue with its blessed oblivion, when—Well, I sat up once more, descended, ran nimbly, for I had learned every step of the way to the grate, and that forlorn hope of an ember. Did it still live? Barely, and fast growing cold.
There were no more scraps of paper, no more letters. Even the match-sticks had been tried in desperation and tried in vain; but there was my pocket-book, and some scrip, or, this failing, a bill of inferior denomination. So the blowing, and the ashes, and the slow dull smoking, slower and duller than before, were repeated, and that was all—save that I was the poorer by some scrip and a green-back or so.
"Miserable ghost!" cried I, the necessity of speech subdued by the reason of the living beings sleeping in near rooms, making speech doubly intense not to say savage—to the being, living or dead, but wide-awake and aggressive in my own room—"miserable ghost, speak or be silent, prance or be still. I will sacrifice to you no more time, no more rest, no more comfort, no more letters, no more greenbacks. I defy you — only, for my own enlightenment will you, in return for the annoyance you have caused me, in ghostly language tell me whether you go through this performance every night, and whether you purpose continuing it till morning? Three raps for affirmative. One for denial. Come! Begin!"
It began, but not as I desired. It was not a ghost to be defied, nor a spirit to indulge in trifling conversation, and it punished my effrontery by going on with its dreary program as though it entirely ignored me and my queries. No light-minded rapping responded, but in its stead, a curious gurgling sound that to my intent ear seemed like the breath of a person dying by slow suffocation.
Yes, it is true; my hair certainly did uncurl, and each particular thread did stand on end with horror. Small, cold claws paced down my back, and marked off each spinal vertebra with painful and peculiar distinctness. My chest
