es impress him with a sense of solitariness,
while the shadows thrown by his lantern gather into strange and menacing
forms.

One of the most curious and alarming of the audible phenomena observable
in the Capitol, so all the watchmen say, is a ghostly footstep that
seems to follow anybody who crosses Statuary Hall at night. It was in
this hall, then the chamber of the House of Representatives, that John
Quincy Adams died--at a spot indicated now by a brass tablet set in a
stone slab, where stood his desk. Whether or not it is his ghost that
pursues is a question open to dispute, though it is to be hoped that the
venerable ex-President rests more quietly in his grave. At all events,
the performance is unpleasant, and even gruesome for him who walks
across that historic floor, while the white marble statues of dead
statesmen placed around the walls seem to point at him with outstretched
arms derisively. Like the man in Coleridge's famous lines he

"--walks in fear and dread,
Because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread."

At all events he is uncertain lest such may be the case. And, of course,
the duties of the watchman oblige him, when so assigned, to patrol the
basement of the building, where all sorts of hobgoblins lie in wait.

One of the Capitol policemen was almost frightened out of his wits one
night when a pair of flaming eyes looked out at him from the vaults
under the chamber of the House of Representatives where the wood is
stored for the fires. It was subsequently ascertained that the eyes in
question were those of a fox, which, being chevied through the town, had
sought refuge in the cellar of the edifice occupied by the national
Legislature. The animal was killed for the reason which obliges a white
man to slay any innocent beast that comes under his power.

But, speaking of the steps which follow a person at night across the
floor of Statuary Hall, a bold watchman attempted not long ago to
investigate them on scientific principles. He suspected a trick, and so
bought a pair of rubber shoes, with the aid of which he proceeded to
examine into the question. In the stillness of the night he made a
business of patrolling that portion of the principal Government edifice,
and, sure enough, the footsteps followed along behind him. He cornered
them; it was surely some trickster! There was no possibility for the
joker to get away. But, a moment later, the steps were heard i