laimed Mr. Pickwick, involuntarily.

"Yes, funny, are they not?" replied the little old man, with a
diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he
continued,--

"I knew another man--let me see--forty years ago now--who took an old,
damp, rotten set of chambers in one of the most ancient Inns, that had
been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots of
old women's stories 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 carcase than
it would ever be worth afterwards, 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 pre