ies about the place, and it certainly was very far from
being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms were cheap, and
that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had
been ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take some
mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a
great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and
a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no
papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with
him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. Well, he had moved in all
his furniture--it wasn't quite a truck-full--and had sprinkled it about
the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as
possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, drinking the
first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering
whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time,
when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. "Ah,"
says he, "if I hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the
old broker's valuation, I might have got something comfortable for the
money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow," he said, speaking aloud to
the press, having nothing else to speak to, "if it wouldn't cost more
to break up your old carcass, than it would ever be worth afterward, I'd
have a fire out of you in less than no time." He had hardly spoken the
words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from
the interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on
a moment's reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next
chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender,
and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment, the sound was
repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale
and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the
press. The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of
care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and
gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this
world was ever seen to wear. "Who are you?" said the new tenant, turning
very pale; poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very
decent aim at the countenance of the figure. "Who are you?" "Don't throw
that poker at me," replied the form; "if you hurled it with ever so sure
an aim, it wou