e of
trotting out the friends of the ghost.

But my turn had to come--and come it did, with a vingeance.

One night, boy-like, I had been braggin' mightily loud about my courage.
Ould Sam offered to bet his three days' grog against mine I daren't
slape in the caboose he had deserted since he saw the sperrit that same
night.

The wager was made, and I turned in, thinking what a laugh I should have
against the ould darky when I handed him back his complement of rum.

I'll do the ould nagur the justice to say, whin I accepted the wager, he
offered to let me off; and, when he found I was determined to stick to
it, he warned me, with a sigh that sounded like a groan, I had much
better not; but anyway, happen what might, he hoped I would hould him
harmless, and forgive him for my misfortune, if any should overtake me.

Wid a smile, bedad! I promised to do so, and, when the time came,
turned into the bunk, and was soon fast aslape.

How long this lasted, I don't know; but I was suddenly awoke by feeling
a cowld, clammy hand passing over my face, and whin I opened my
pay-pers, judge of my dread whin I saw the lank spectre I had been
making a joke of standing by my side. Bedad! if Saint Patrick's
Cathedral was stuck in my throat, I couldn't have felt more nearly
choked. The crature, whatever it was, seemed as tall as the manemast,
and as thin as a rasher of wind.

Every hair on my head sprang up, and my eyes seemed starting out of
their sockets to meet those of the ghost, which were as big as saucers,
and were fixed on mine with a look that seemed to go through and through
them, and come out at the back of my head.

I tried to cry out, but I couldn't; but if my tongue couldn't chatter,
my teeth could. If the big skeleton's bones had been put in an empty
cask, and well shuck up by a couple of strong min, they couldn't have
made a bigger noise than my jaws did.

I tried my hardest to remimber and reharse a prayer; but sorrow the
taste of one would come into my head. Shure, everything dacent was
frightened clane out of it. The only good thing I could call to mind
was what my mother taught me to say before males. I thought that was
better than nothing, so I whispered out, while I was shivering with the
fear that was upon me, "For what I am going to recave, may the Lord make
me truly thankful!"

Whin I had done, the ghost's jaws moved, and, in a voice so hoarse and
hollow, that it might have come from the bottom of