e as if he feared the woman would drag
him bodily away from these friends.

"Oi suppose thot she may be able to foorce me into marryin' her," he
moaned. "Oi kilt a thramp, and Oi wor hidin' frum the officers--may the
divil floy away wid thim--and Oi sneaked intil her house, d'ye moind,
and hid me loike a fool under her bed. The crayther had been lookin'
under thot bed for forty years to foind a man! And whin she let her ould
oyes loight on me, she pulled me out av there; an' she's been kapin' me
and scarin' me intil fits and hoidin' me from the officers iver
since--and, bad cess to her, nixt wake she wor goin' to marry me."

"Why did you sneak round the hotel and along the paths in that queer
way?" Frank asked, after the vinegary-visaged and matrimonially inclined
female had departed in despair and disgust, and he had Barney alone.
"That still puzzles me. We heard that you had been killed by those
tramps, and you looked and acted enough like a ghost to be one!"

"A ghost, is it?" said Barney, glancing about as if he did not like even
the thought. "Thot ould witch wor kapin' me hid away from the officers
in thot wee bit av a house roight behind the three over there, and all
the ixercoise Oi could git wor whin Oi could shlip out av noights and
walk round and swally a brith av fresh air. Oi t'ought Oi had kilt the
thramp and thot the officers wor watchin' for me! Thot ould divil hilped
me to believe thot hersilf! So whin Oi heard yez call, av coorse Oi
worn't goin' to sthop and be arristed. A ghost, is it? Oi'm thinkin'
thot yez'd be crapin' round, too, if yez t'ought thot a rope wor riddy
to toighten about the neck av yez!"

* * * * *

"Haw! haw! haw!"

The roars did not proceed from Joe Gamp, but from the landlord of the
hotel. Now that Barney was found to be real flesh and blood, and not a
spirit, the landlord had entered more heartily into the search for the
mysterious source of the strange footsteps. He had been willing that the
doors opening into the corridors should be closed--for only when the
corridor was darkened could the ghostly sounds be heard.

As soon as the "footsteps" came again he threw open the door and
chucklingly led the way out through a side room into a shedlike
structure that came up against the corridor wall.

"There is your ha'nt!" he roared, pointing down into a pen in the shed.
"There is your ha'nt! A gol-derned old sea-turtle! Haw! haw! haw! Ho!
ho! ho! H