at this was Perdue, the brilliant "Baron Bertram" of the early days
of the Hasheesh Club.

When Charley got back to his luxurious apartment he was possessed with
a superstitious feeling. He took up the paper weight that Henry Vail
had held in his hand the very last night he was in this parlor, and he
thought the whole conversation over as he smoked his cigar, fearing to
put out his light.

"Confound the man that invented ghost stories for a Christmas
amusement!" he said, as he remembered Old Scrooge and Tiny Tim. "Well,
I'm not Old Scrooge, anyhow, if I'm not as good as poor Henry Vail."

I do not know whether it was the reaction from the punch he had drunk,
or the sudden shock of Vail's death, or the troubled conscience, or
from all three, but when he got into bed he found himself shaking with
nervousness.

He had been asleep an hour, perhaps, when he heard a genuine Irish
voice say, "Faix, mister, and is yer name Charley?"

He started up--looked around the room. He had made so much concession
to his nervous feeling that he had not turned the gas quite out, as was
his custom. The dim duskiness made him shudder; he expected to see the
Huckleberry Street Irish woman looking at him. But he shook off his
terror a little, uttered another malediction on the man that invented
Christmas ghost stories, concluded that his illusion must have come
from his lying on his left side, turned over, and reflected that by so
doing he would relieve his heart and stomach from the weight of his
liver, repeated this physiological reflection in a soothing way two or
three times, dropped off into a quiet snooze, and almost immediately
found himself sitting bolt upright in bed, shaking with a chill terror,
sure that the Irish voice had again asked the question, "Faix, mister,
and is yer name Charley?" He had a feeling, though his back was toward
the table, that some one sat at the table. Charley was no coward, but
it took him a minute or two to shake off his terror and regain enough
self-control to look around.

For a moment he saw, or thought he saw, a form sitting at the table,
then it disappeared, and then, after a good while, Charley got himself
composed to sleep again, this time with his head well bolstered, to
reduce the circulation in the brain, as he reflected.

He did not get to sleep, however, for before he became unconscious the
Irish voice from just above the carved headboard spoke out so clear now
that there could be no mist