crumble beneath the still-consuming flame; the bells crash down from the steeple one by one, a smoking mass of blackened walls and arches alone bears witness to the past, alone tells of anthems raised to heaven by the whiterobed choir, and earnest words of God's chosen messengers, and the all-pervading incense of hushed and solemn prayer. NEW SARUM. men, SECOND PRIZE. MURK midnight. Some in their beds for a moment waking only to hear the buffeting of the elements. Policewetter than Ramsgate bathing-men, seeking the shelter of doorways. The bells of St. Paul's unwillingly giving utterance to their dissatisfaction with their position by twelve muttering growls. The town, dry in the early spring, now ankle-deep in mud; the wind is no longer still, but, stealthily following the unwary foot-passenger, whirls off his hat, and, stopping for a moment in glee at his discomfiture, rushes on, eager for more mischief. Now crowds, freed from their cramped postures in the playhouse, rush out upon the wild waste of the dripping Strand. Here, roaring, fighting, pushing, elbowing each other into the howling fury of the night. Hither come chattering voices from the stalls, pit, and recesses of the theatre, where the chairs remain sole occupants of the place, and seem to say, "Ah, ha, here we are, snug for the night!"' Here in the eagerness of regained liberty, they storm and push each other, while the tempest falls in sheets of water, and howls above them. On and on in countless crowds they rush, like human billows. Men and women, hats, bonnets, and umbrellas, draggled dresses in one rushing wet mass. Pursuit of cabs, and fruitless return to the shelter of the passage; savage struggle of humanity enlivening the black night; little forbearance, but eternal fighting. On and on they surge, backwards and forwards, and darker grows the night, fiercer falls the hail, louder roars the thunder, more clamorous and angry the numberless voices in the street, when a wild cry goes forth, "A cab!" Onward it comes, fighting its way through the elements, the crazy door rattling; onward it comes, now free as the surging crowd falls back, now overwhelmed in a sea of human forms. And every voice in the multitude, answered by storm-voices in the air, shrieks more loudly, "A cab!" Still he comes driving on, and at the boldness and determination of one man the angry crowd rise up, peering over each other's heads, and round about the cab they press upon him, forcing each other down, and starting up and rushing forward in reckless eagerness. Round it they surge and roar, and, giving way to others, moodily depart, still this one fights on bravely. At last the eager multitude fall back, and dawn of day discovers the happy occupant within, with the elements still pouring their fury upon the devoted driver in an eternity of hail and rain, as on and on he goes into the far suburbs, with his dim lamps burning, and the fare inside asleep and snoring, as if there were no tempest trying every chink and cranny of the shaky vehicle, and no halfdrowned cabby outside with only a moist billycock on his head, and sleepily yawning so wide that the spirits of the air, if they could exist on such a night, might look into the unfathomable depths below. ROBERT LE Diable. It further appears that an amendment was suggested by Will. O'Bye Wisp, Esq., who had failed as a ball-player, and was better known as an enthusiastic Pyramidalist,— "That the study of the triangular must inevitably result in greater benefits to the human race than the con sideration of the sphere; " but, as this was unsupported by any further argument than that the triangle had more point than the ball, the original resolution was carried, Mr. Will. O'Bye Wisp alone dissenting. It was further agreed, that V. H. Hitquick, Esq., should be President; that he, with Mr. Cutman, Mr. Shortgrass, and Mr. de Vorley, should be the Committee; and that Mr. Pleycynge should be the Secretary. "A casual observer," adds the Secretary, to whose notes we are indebted for the following interesting remarks, "A casual observer might have remarked nothing extraordinary in the appearance of V. H. Hitquick, Esq., during the reading of these resolutions; but to those who knew that there sat the man who had traced the origin of the ball into the early ages, when globular masses had been created by the introduction of the laws of gravity among. shapeless matter; who had detected how, true to the model of the planetary system, the earliest balls had been ellipsoidal; how prehistoric men, in their primæval pastimes, had been driven nigh to frenzy by the false bounds arising out of this apparently heaven-directed shape; how, in such times, the advantages of service had been all preponderating; how certain crafty Chaldean astrologers in their studies had discovered the shape of the true sphere, and how, having backed themselves with wagers of corn and oil and wine, they had cheated in their international games by substituting the true spheres when they were being served to, and by using the ellipsoids when serving; to those, say, who knew that there sat the man who had traced out all this and much else, by the research of half a lifetime, the sight, indeed, an interesting one. Mr. Hitquick's oration in response was remarkable;" but the damp of the Wymbledoune cloisters had here much obliterated the Secretary's notes. It was gathered, however, that be was comparing the life of man to that of a tennis-ball, and was congratulating them "that the philanthropists and the ball makers were rapidly, in both cases, eliminating the seamy side, though he was fain to acknowledge that some hollowness still remained in both." Here the entry becomes illegible, and we have had to fall back upon tradition, and other sources, for what we are about to record further of the doings of the Hitquick Club. was CHAPTER II. MR. HITQUICK, who had been delivering over-night, amidst much applause, an impressive lecture to the members of the Hitquick Club on various phases of Lawn-tennis dynamics, was with some difficulty roused from his slumbers on the particular morning of which it now becomes our duty to write. * All England Lawn-Tennis Club. ↑ President Hitquick Club. " 'What's that, Samuel?" he proceeded to say to his servant, as he sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes,-"a letter?" "Yes, sir," was the reply. "Then bring me my spectacles," said Mr. Hitquick. "If you please, sir, a boy have walked over with this from Little Mugborough, and he's a-vaiting below for a hanswer." "Very well, Samuel," said Mr. Hitquick, as he adjusted his spectacles and opened the letter. "Why! dear me ! What's this?" The Secretary of the Little Mugborough Lawn-Tennis Club presents his compliments to Mr. Hitquick, and begs to inform him that two members of his Club will be glad to play any two members of the Hitquick Association at four o'clock this afternoon.' Why! a challenge," said Mr. Hitquick. "Of course, we will meet them. Let me see there's Shortgrass and Cutman, two active men in the prime of life, who tell me they generally offer half-thirty in mixed country society; the very thing. Here, take this, Samuel." "It strikes me wery forcibly," said Samuel to himself with a wink, "that, if those two gents don't look a bit more spry this afternoon than I have ever seen them ven I have had the extreme privilege of vatching their performances, the Hitquick Club will have a very considerable wopping," and, whistling to himself, he went off with the letter. 66 Now, it must be confessed that neither Mr. Shortgrass nor Mr. Cutman were such performers on the Tennislawn as they had led their worthy President, Mr. Hitquick, to believe, nor as they had described themselves in their after-dinner conversations, as they sipped the soft claret for which the Hitquick Club was so deservedly famous; though certain papers which they had read before the members of the Association had, no doubt, stamped them as theoretical professors of no mean order. Notably, a paper by Mr. Cutman on Atmospheric resistance to the Cutman service in the latitude of Greenwich" (a lecture suggested by certain accurate memoranda, prepared by the statist of the Club, to the effect that only 17 of these services so far overcame it as to pass over the net), had placed him in the front ranks of Lawntennis theorists; while a lecture by Mr. Shortgrass, on Suspected tidal attraction on the Shortgrass lob" (accounting for the discovery by the same scientific observer that it almost always completed its parabola on Mr. Shortgrass's side of the net), had brought him, too, into a leading position amongst spheric scientists. At four o'clock, however, Mr. Shortgrass and Mr. Cutman stepped upon the lawn, prepared to do battle for the Hitquickians, and were soon confronted by the team from Little Mugborough. The game began, A sharp service was sent to Mr. Shortgrass, who shut his eyes, hit wildly, and returned it accidentally. No one's astonishment was greater than his own; he felt he had done enough; he shouted "yours" to balls which kept striking him on head, stomach, and legs, and did not appear to recover from his intense surprise till the umpire called, "Set the first, six games to love, Little Mugborough wins." "Call that placing, Samivel, my boy," said a stout elderly gentleman, of horsey dress, to his son, who was no other than Mr. Hitquick's servant; "call that placing? Vy! I should like to see one of these ere ball-placers as could flick a fly off a leader's ear! That's wot I calls placing, Samivel." Mr. Hitquick's face had now begun to lengthen to such an extent as to cause a bystander to inform him that a curious compound of brandy and soda-water was to be obtained in the marquee close by, whither Mr. Hitquick, taking such bystander's advice now adjourned. "Capital game-smart sport-rare exercise-very," were the words that fell upon Mr. Hitquick's ear as he entered the marquee. "What! Jangle?" said he, recognising an old acquaintance, "What brings you here?" "Me here-Wymbledoune Arms-met a party-capital fellows-gin and water-Lawn-tennis-great matchLittle Mugborough--came on here-and here we are. What name? Know your face." "My name, sir, is Hitquick, author of a Treatise on Balls;' at your service, sir." "Ah! Hitquick--much pleasure-great man-good book-read it myself-Spheric lore-Sun, SaturnEarth Jupiter-pumpkins - balls inter-threadedhuman race-round games-round robins-general ideadeuced clever." - And do you-er-join, Mr. Jangle, in this-erhealthgiving pastime?" Play, Sir," said Jangle-"I think I did—never heard?-queer thing-deuced strange-great travellerround the world-visited Madagascar-met a strangersaid he could play-offered to play him-gave fifteenthermometer 110 degrees in the shade-threw in a bisque-beat him hollow-no umpire-stranger rileddisputed scoring-they always do-ex-champion-name Shadow-all love-sets-play? rather." As Jangle and Mr. Hitquick reapproached the game, it had just become the duty of the umpire to cry: "Three sets to love, Little Mugborough wins," thus deciding the match adversely to the Hitquickians. Mr. Hitquick retired a few paces from the bystanders, and, beckoniug Shortgrass to approach, fixed a keen and searching glance upon him, and uttered in a low tone these remarkable words : "Sir, you're a humbug." Turning to Cutman, who was trying to conceal himself behind his late partner, he added,"And you, too, sir." "What?" they both exclaimed, starting. "Humbugs, sir. I will speak more plainly, if you desire it. Imposters, sir. Yes; imposters." And with these words Mr, Hitquick turned slowly on his heel, and proceeded to rejoin his friends. This Parody originally appeared in Pastime, July 20, 1883. It was afterwards reprinted in Tennis Cuts and Quips, an amusing volume ably edited by Mr. Julian Marshall, and published by Field and Tuer, London. The late Mr. Charles Stuart Calverley, the author of many clever parodies, was a diligent student of the works of Dickens, and when he entered at Christ's College, Cambridge, in October 1852, it was generally admitted that he was more familiar with the Pickwick Papers than any other man in the University. Hence arose the jocular notion of having a competitive examination on that work, and Calverley drew up an ingenious syllabus of questions, from which it may be gathered how accurate and minute was his acquaintance with Pickwick. The examination was open to all members of Christ's College, the first prize was taken by Mr. Walter Besant, and the second by Mr. (now Professor) Skeat, two gentlemen whose names have since become familiar in the literary world. The Pickwick Examination Paper will be found in Fly Leaves, by C. S. Calverley, published by G. Bell & Sons, a few specimen questions will show the humour of the thing : 1. Mention any occasions on which it is specified that "Go on, Jemmy-like black-eyed Susan-all in the Downs"-"Smart chap that cabman-handled his fives well-but if I'd been your friend in the green jemmy-punch his head-pig's whisperpieman, too." Elucidate the expression, "the Spanish Traveller," and the "narcotic bedstead." What operation was performed on Tom Smart's chair? Who little thinks that in which pocket, of what garment, in where, he has left what, entreating him to return to whom, with how many what, and all how big? 5. Give, approximately, the height of Mr. Dubbley; and, accurately, the Christian names of Mr. Grummer, Mrs. Raddle, and the Fat Boy; also the surname of the Zephyr. 8. Give in full Samuel Weller's first compliment to Mary, and his father's critique upon the same young lady, What church was on the valentine that first attracted Mr. Samuel's eye in the shop? II. On finding his principal in the pound, Mr. Weller and the town-beadle varied directly. Show that the latter was ultimately eliminated, and state the number of rounds in the square which is not described. 12. "Any think for air and exercise; as the wery old donkey observed ven they voke him up from his deathbed to carry ten gen'lmer. to Greenwich in a tax-cart." Illustrate this by stating any remark recorded in the Pickwick Papers to have been made by a (previously) dumb animal, with the circumstances under which he made it. 15. Describe Weller's Method of "gently indicating his to the young lady in the garden; and the presence Form of Salutation usual among the coachmen of the period. 20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. S. Weller's song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man's excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that he (Sam) had more brothers than one? 23. "She's a swelling visibly." When did the same phenomenon occur again, and what fluid caused the pressure on the body in the latter case? 24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds, and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? in what terms is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the name of the meeting? 30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have worn gaiters ? In connection with this examination reference may be made to the "Death of Mr. Pickwick," by Messrs. W. Besant and J. Rice in "The Case of Mr. Lucraft, and other Tales. tower and steeple rose and were lost to the eyes of the gazer from below! Night! black, stormy, dreary night. Driving in long dim lines athwart the starless sky-lashing the sloping roofs of dripping houses-flooding kennel and gutter and choked-up drain-pattering like a loud chorus of rolling spectre drums at rattling windows and on streaming sky-lights-down-in one steady, uninterrupted, continuous pour-drove the wild storm of lashing hail and rain! A dismal night! A night for the wellhoused to snoozle themselves up beneath the bed-clothes, and listen all crouchingly to the roaring of the tempest ! A night for the homeless pauper to lie down on the lee side of hedge and stack-and stretching his stiffening limbs in the icy sludge, wait patiently until Death came by and touched him with its sceptre ! Night-a dreary, dismal, rainy, windy night! A night of unchained gale and unbridled hurricane! How the fierce wind roared, to be sure! How it roared in its wrath, and muttered in its sulkiness, and sung in its glee, and howled and shrieked and whistled and raved in the full swing of its fury. It was a jubilee-be certain of it -a time of jubilee with the Wind!-a night when it had full license and authority, and power and sanction, to do its best and its worst-by sea and by land-above and below. And did not the fierce wind avail itself of the opportunity? Did it not muster its forces, and its energies, and its powers, far up amongst the dim-driving clouds, preparing for the onset-preparing for its night of empire and of pillage and of mischief? And then, when its time of liberty came, did it not burst out with a roar, and a shout, and a clang, as of victorious trumpetsdid it not career all madly over land and sea, beating down the weak and broken corn, and roaring over the stark brown moors, and catching the big leafy limbs of gnarled trees-gnarled old mighty trees which had stood there for centuries-and wrenching them all torn and riven and splintered from the groaning trunks, and then grappling and wrestling with them as strong men fight, until the victorious wind, with a loud shriek of triumph, would drag the huge branch out, and toss it contemptuously away! Who-o-o-op! for the Battle won by the Wind! But that was not all. No, no. It attacked the city too, as well as the country. It did. The wind! Coming with a sweep and a pounce and a roar and a whistle-shrieking up through empty streets-groaning with a hollow sound in dim big archways-catching as with a muscular grasp, vanes and weathercocks-coming to the outside of windows-laying hold of the glazed sashes-shaking and rattling them and shouting hoarse mad greeting to the people within-lingering, I say, an instant at such places, and then departing with a burst of uproarious joy to lay siege to some high old tottering ricketty gable, which it would so shake, and push, and pull, and cause to waver and quake-that the whole crazy old tenement to which it belonged would wheeze and creak and groan in sympathy, until the old men and the old women, who dwelt there for long years, would be terrified and frightened, and would cower down upon the hot hearths or in their beds, crying--" Woe is me, but this is a wild night !" And it was-it was-a wild night.-Who-0-0-op for the Battle won by the Wind! On a bridge which spans a black, swollen, mightily rushing river. Dim lights twinkle along its great massive, girding, granite parapets. The wind sweeps over it, and roars in the arches below, and catches up the bright foam from the water, and rushes along with it, scattering the spray in white handfuls aloft, so that the passenger who looks into the gulf from between the balustrades of carven stone which fence the footpath, shrinks to see the driving masses of blurred whiteness-the vexed surface of the waters torn up and carried along by the strong broad hands of the blast! Where a flickering lamp flashed and paled, and rose and fell within the streaming and storm-lashed crystal of its dripping prison, stood a woman-a woman, beautiful and alone. Black clusters of rain-drenched hair waved and streamed from her pale cheeks. Her garments were mean and sodden, and saturated with the storm; but her eye was bright and fierce, and burning with a fire not of this world-with a fire which once-when the western heaven opened, and the forked lightning leaped out into the darkness-confronted the fierce blaze-and gave it back glare for glare! She stood beneath the flickering lamp. For a moment only. The next she was erect upon the parapet-her arms extended-her drapery streaming free-like a bird that preens its plumage for a new flight-a flight into another world? Ha!-a voice! Yes-the woman's-hark! What says it? The words-the last words-have gone forth; and as the dark form disappears from its granite resting-place-disappears into the black, howling, lashing gulf beneath-these words ring up and away into the air-being carried on the wings of the tempest whithersoever it will-these awful words "Who o-o-op for the Battle won by the Wind !" Yes, yes-the wind of Passion- the breath of hopeless, homeless, heartless, l'espair! From The Puppet-Showman's Album. Illustrated by Gavarni. London, no date. Amongst the Sensation Novels, so skilfully condensed by Bret Harte, is a humourous parody of the most popular of Charles Dickens's Christmas books. In it the leading characteristics and failings are admirably hit off, not only of Dickens, but also of Scott, Charles Lever, Marryat, Fennimore Cooper, Hawthorne, and Thackeray, as will be seen from the following extracts : THE HAUNTED MAN. A Christmas Story. PART I. THE FIRST PHANTOM. DON'T tell me that it wasn't a knocker. I had seen it often enough, and I ought to know. So ought the three o'clock beer, in dirty highlows, swinging himself over the railing, or executing a demoniacal jig upon the doorstep; so ought the butcher, although butchers as a general thing are scornful of such trifles; so ought the postman, to whom knockers of the most extravagant description were merely human weaknesses, that were to be pitied and used. And so ought, for the matter of that, etc., etc., etc.. But then it was such a knocker. A wild, extravagant, and utterly incomprehensible knocker. A knocker so mysterious and suspicious that Policeman X 37, first coming upon it, felt inclined to take it instantly in custody, but compromised with his professional instincts by sharply and sternly noting it with an eye that admitted of no nonsense, but confidently expected to detect its secret yet. An ugly knocker; a knocker with a hard, human face, that was a type of the harder human face within. A human face that held between its teeth a brazen rod. So hereafter in the mysterious future should be held, etc., etc. But if the knocker had a fierce human aspect in the glare of day, you should have seen it at night, when it peered out of the gathering shadows and suggested an ambushed figure; when the light of the street lamps fell upon it, and wrought a play of sinister expression in its hard outlines; when it seemed to wink meaningly at a shrouded figure who, as the night fell darkly, crept up the steps and passed into the mysterious house; when the swinging door disclosed a black passage into which the figure seemed to lose itself and become a part of the mysterious gloom; when the night grew boisterous and the fierce wind made furious charges at the knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it away in triumph. Such a night as this. It was a wild and pitiless wind. A wind that had commenced life as a gentle country zephyr, but wandering through manufacturing towns had become demoralised, and reaching the city had plunged into extravagant dissipation and wild excesses. A roystering wind that indulged in Bacchanalian shouts on the street corners, that knocked off the hats from the heads of helpless passengers, and then fulfilled its duties by speeding away, like all young prodi. gals-to sea. He sat alone in a gloomy library listening to the wind that roared in the chimney. Around him novels and storybooks were strewn thickly; in his lap he held one with its pages freshly cut, and turned the leaves wearily until his eyes rested upon a portrait in its frontispiece. And as the wind howled the more fiercely, and the darkness without fell blacker, a strange and fateful likeness to that portrait appeared above his chair and leaned upon his shoulder. The Haunted Man gazed at the portrait and sighed. The figure gazed at the portrait and sighed too. "Here again?" said the Haunted Man. "I see a child," said the Haunted Man, gazing from the pages of the book into the fire-"a most unnatural child, a model infant. It is prematurely old and philosophic. It dies in poverty to slow music. It dies surrounded by luxury to slow music. It dies with an accompaniment of golden water and rattling carts to slow music. Previous to its decease it makes a will; it repeats the Lord's Prayer, it kisses the 'boofer lady.' That child-" "Is mine," said the phantom. "I see a good woman, undersized. I see several charming women, but they are all undersized. They are more or less imbecile and idiotic, but always fascinating and undersized. They wear coquettish caps and aprons. I observe that feminine virtue is invariably below the medium height, and that it is always babyish and infantine. These "To me!" said the phantom. continued, in a despairing tone: The Haunted Man "I see the influence of this in the magazines and daily papers: I see weak imitators rise up and enfeeble the world with senseless formula. I am getting tired of it. It won't do, Charles! it won't do!" and the Haunted Man buried his head in his hands and groaned. The figure looked down upon him sternly: the portrait in the frontispiece frowned as he gazed. "Wretched man, "said the phantom, "and how have these things affected you?" "Once I laughed and cried, but then I was younger. Now, I would forget them if I could." "Have then your wish. And take this with you, man whom I renounce. From this day henceforth you shall live with those whom I displace. Without forgetting me, 'twill be your lot to walk through life as if we had not met. But first you shall survey these scenes that henceforth must be yours. At one to-night prepare to meet the phantom I have raised. Farewell!" The sound of its voice seemed to fade away with the dying wind, and the Haunted Man was alone. But the firelight flickered gaily, and the light danced on the walls, making grotesque figures of the furniture. "Ha, ha!" said the Haunted Man, rubbing his hands gleefully; "now for a whiskey punch and a cigar." BOOK II. THE SECOND PHANTOM. ONE! The stroke of the far-off bell had hardly died before the front door closed with a reverberating clang. Steps were heard along the passage; the library door swung open of itself, and the Knocker-yes, the Knocker-slowly strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his eyesno! there could be no mistake about it-it was the Knocker's face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon. "It's a cold evening," said the Haunted Man. "It is," said the Goblin, in a hard, metallic voice. "It must be pretty cold out there," said the Haunted Man, with vague politeness. "Do you ever-will youtake some hot water and brandy?" "No," said the Goblin. Perhaps you'd like it cold, by way of change?" continued the Haunted Man, correcting himself, as he remembered the peculiar temperature with which the Goblin was probably familiar. "Time flies,' "said the Goblin coldly. "We have no leisure for idle talk. Come!" He moved his ghostly truncheon towards the window, and laid his hand upon the other's arm. At his touch the body of the Haunted Man seemed to become as thin and incorporeal as that of the Goblin himself, and together they glided out of the window into the black and blowy night. In the rapidity of their flight the senses of the Haunted Man seemed to leave him. At length they stopped suddenly. "What do you see?" asked the Goblin. "I see a battlemented medieval castle. Gallant men in mail ride over the drawbridge, and kiss their gauntletted fingers to fair ladies, who wave their lily hands in return. I see fight and fray and tournament. I hear roaring heralds bawling the charms of delicate women, and shamelessly proclaiming their lovers. Stay. I see a Jewess about to leap from a battlement. I see knightly deeds, violence, rapine, and a good deal of blood. I've seen pretty much the same at Astley's.' "Look again." "I see purple moors, glens, masculine women, barelegged men, priggish bookworms, more violence, physical excellence, and blood. Always blood-and the superiority of physical attainments." "And how do you feel now?" said the Goblin. The Haunted Man shrugged his shoulders. "None the better for being carried back and asked to sympathise with a barbarous age. The Goblin smiled and clutched his arm; they again sped rapidly through the black night and again halted. "What do you see?" said the Goblin. "I see a barrack room, with a mess table, and a group of intoxicated Celtic officers telling funny stories, and giving challenges to duel. I see a young Irish gentleman capable of performing prodigies of valour. I learn incidentally that the acme of all heroism is the cornetcy of a dragoon regiment. I hear a good deal of French! No, thank you," said the Haunted Man hurriedly, as he stayed the waving hand of the Goblin, "I would rather not go to the Peninsular, and don't care to have a private interview with Napoleon.' "Look !" repeated the Goblin, pinching his arm malevolently. The Haunted Man groaned. "Oh, of course, I see Her Majesty's ship Arethusa. Of course I am familiar with her stern First Lieutenant, her eccentric Captain, her one fascinating, and several mischievous midshipmen. Of course, I know it's a splendid thing to see all this, and not to be sea-sick. Oh, there the young gentlemen are going to play a trick on the purser. God's sake let us go,' ," and the unhappy man absolutely dragged the Goblin away with him. For The Haunted Man started, and-woke. The bright sunshine streamed into the room. The air was sparkling with frost. He ran joyously to the window and opened it. A The small boy saluted him with "Merry Christmas." Haunted Man instantly gave him a Bank of England note. "How much like Tiny Tim, Tom and Bobby that boy looked-bless my soul, what a genius this Dickens has!" A knock at the door, and Boots entered. "Consider your salary doubled instantly. Have you read David Copperfield?" "Yezzur." |