the house, and restores the crystal antiquity to its proper pocket,
eats a few cloves by stealth. His manner plainly shows that he is
offended at the quantity the old man has managed to swallow already.

Strange indeed is the ghastly expedition to the place of skulls, upon
which these two go thus by night. Not strange, perhaps, for Mr.
MCLAUGHLIN, whose very youth in New York, where he was an active
politician, found him a frequent nightly familiar of the Tombs; but
strange for the organist, who, although often grave in his manner,
sepulchral in his tones, and occasionally addicted to coughin', must be
curiously eccentric to wish to pass into concert that evening with the
dead heads.

Transfixed by his umbrella, which makes him look like a walking cross
between a pair of boots and a hat, Mr. BUMSTEAD leads the way athwart
the turnpike and several fields, until they have arrived at a low wall
skirting the foot of Gospeler's Gulch. Here they catch sight of the
Reverend OCTAVIUS SIMPSON and MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON walking together,
near the former's house, in the moonlight, and, instantaneously, Mr.
BUMSTEAD opens his umbrella over the head of OLD MORTARITY, and drags
him down beside himself under it behind the wall.

"Hallo! What's all this?" gasps Mr. MCLAUGHLIN, struggling affrightedly
in his suffocating cage of whalebone and alpaca. "What's this here old
lady's hoop-skirt doing on me?"

"Peace, wriggling dotard!" hisses BUMSTEAD, jamming the umbrella tighter
over him. "If they see us they'll want some of the West Indian
Restorative."

Mr. SIMPSON and MONTGOMERY have already heard a sound; for they pause
abruptly in their conversation, and the latter asks: "Could it have been
a ghost?"

"Ask it if it's a ghost," whispers the Gospeler, involuntarily crossing
himself.

"Are you there, Mr. G.?" quavers the raised voice of the young
Southerner, respectfully addressing the inquiry to the stone wall.

No answer.

"Well," mutters the Gospeler, "it couldn't have been a ghost, after all;
but I certainly thought I saw an umbrella. To conclude what I was
saying, then,--I have the confidence in you, Mr. MONTGOMERY, to believe
that you will attend the dinner of Reconciliation on Christmas eve, as
you have promised."

"Depend on me, sir."

"I shall; and have become surety for your punctuality to that excellent
and unselfish healer of youthful wounds, Mr. BUMSTEAD."

More is said after this; but the speakers have strolled