association of ideas, that, when I first read in Lord Byron's Don Juan, "I pass my evenings in long galleries solely, And that's the reason I'm so melancholy," the lines immediately conjured up the image of poor Charles in the midst of his dumps and spectres at the end of his own long gallery. EPIGRAM. BY JOYCE JOCUND. So well deserved is Roger's fame, That friends who hear him most, advise The EGOTIST to Change his name To "Argus--with his hundred I's!" [Illustration: The Spectre of Tappington] FIRE-SIDE STORIES.--No. I. THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON. "It is very odd, though, what can have become of them?" said Charles Seaforth, as he peeped under the valance of an old-fashioned bedstead, in an old-fashioned apartment of a still more old-fashioned manor-house; "'tis confounded odd, and I can't make it out at all. Why, Barney, where are they? and where the d--l are you?" No answer was returned to this appeal; and the lieutenant, who was in the main a reasonable person,--at least as reasonable a person as any young gentleman of twenty-two in "the service" can fairly be expected to be,--cooled when he reflected that his servant could scarcely reply extempore to a summons which it was impossible he should hear. An application to the bell was the considerate result; and the footsteps of as tight a lad as ever put pipe-clay to belt sounded along the gallery. "Come in!" said his master. An ineffectual attempt upon the door reminded Mr. Seaforth that he had locked himself in. "By Heaven! this is the oddest thing of all," said he, as he turned the key and admitted Mr. Maguire into his dormitory. "Barney, where are my pantaloons?" "Is it the breeches?" asked the valet, casting an inquiring eye round the apartment; "is it the breeches, sir?" "Yes; what have you done with them?" "Sure then your honour had them on when you went to bed, and it's hereabouts they'll be, I'll be bail;" and Barney lifted a fashionable tunic from a cane-backed arm-chair, proceeding in his examination. But the search was vain. There was the tunic aforesaid,--there was a smart-looking kerseymere waistcoat; but the most important article in a gentleman's wardrobe was still wanting. "Where _can_ they be?" asked the master with a strong accent on the auxiliary verb. "Sorrow a know I knows," said the man. "It must have been the devil, then, after all, who has been here and carried them off!" cried Seaforth, staring full into Barney's face. Mr. Maguire was not devoid of the superstition of his countrymen, but he looked as if he did not subscribe to the _sequitur_. His master read incredulity in his countenance. "Why, I tell you, Barney, I put them there, on that arm-chair, when I got into bed; and, by Heaven! I distinctly saw the ghost of the old fellow they told me of, come in at midnight, put on my pantaloons, and walk away with them."