men are merry, and takes a pleasure in it?"

'Again the mysterious voices replied, "Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!"

'"I am afraid my friends want you, Gabriel," said the goblin, thrusting
his tongue farther into his cheek than ever--and a most astonishing
tongue it was--"I'm afraid my friends want you, Gabriel," said the
goblin.

'"Under favour, Sir," replied the horror-stricken sexton, "I don't think
they can, Sir; they don't know me, Sir; I don't think the gentlemen have
ever seen me, Sir."

'"Oh, yes, they have," replied the goblin; "we know the man with the
sulky face and grim scowl, that came down the street to-night, throwing
his evil looks at the children, and grasping his burying-spade the
tighter. We know the man who struck the boy in the envious malice of his
heart, because the boy could be merry, and he could not. We know him, we
know him."

'Here, the goblin gave a loud, shrill laugh, which the echoes returned
twentyfold; and throwing his legs up in the air, stood upon his head, or
rather upon the very point of his sugar-loaf hat, on the narrow edge of
the tombstone, whence he threw a Somerset with extraordinary agility,
right to the sexton's feet, at which he planted himself in the attitude
in which tailors generally sit upon the shop-board.

'"I--I--am afraid I must leave you, Sir," said the sexton, making an
effort to move.

'"Leave us!" said the goblin, "Gabriel Grub going to leave us. Ho! ho!
ho!"

'As the goblin laughed, the sexton observed, for one instant, a
brilliant illumination within the windows of the church, as if the
whole building were lighted up; it disappeared, the organ pealed forth
a lively air, and whole troops of goblins, the very counterpart of the
first one, poured into the churchyard, and began playing at leap-frog
with the tombstones, never stopping for an instant to take breath, but
"overing" the highest among them, one after the other, with the most
marvellous dexterity. The first goblin was a most astonishing leaper,
and none of the others could come near him; even in the extremity of his
terror the sexton could not help observing, that while his friends were
content to leap over the common-sized gravestones, the first one took
the family vaults, iron railings and all, with as much ease as if they
had been so many street-posts.

'At last the game reached to a most exciting pitch; the organ played
quicker and quicker, and the goblins leaped faster and faster, coiling
th