"That's all bosh!" said Bob. "You would soon cut and run. But if you are in earnest, come with me to the cross-road, and I promise to introduce you to the old gentleman. The clock has just struck eleven, he will be taking his rounds by the time we get there." The young man drew back. "Not in your company, Mason. It would be enough to raise the Devil." "Well, please yourself. I knew you would not have pluck enough. I shall go, however. I want to have a few minutes' conversation with the ghost before he appears in public. Perhaps he will show me where to find a hidden treasure. Good-by, mother; shall I give your compliments to the old gentleman? Love, I know, is out of the question. You had none to spare for him when he was alive." "Away with you, for a blasphemous reprobate that you are!" cried the angry old woman, shaking her crutch at him. "Mammy's own darling son!" cried the disgusting wretch, as with a loud oath he sprang through the open door and vanished into the dark night. The men looked significantly at each other, and a little tailor rose cautiously and shut the door. "Why do you do that?" said Tom Weston. "To keep out bad company." "It is stifling hot!" cried Tom, kicking it open with his foot. "I shall die without a whiff of fresh air." "But the ghost?" and the little tailor shook his head mysteriously. "Does not belong to any of us," rejoined Tom. "My relations are all sound sleepers, good honest people, who are sure to rest in their graves. There is a storm brewing," he continued, walking to the open door; "that thunder-cloud will burst over our heads in a few minutes, and Master Bob will get a good drenching." "It's awesome to hear him talk, as he do, of his feather's spirit," said honest Josh. "It makes my flesh creep upon my bones." "Provided there's any truth in his statements," said a carpenter, who had been smoking his pipe by the table, and silently listening to the conversation,--"which I much doubt. For my own part I would be more afraid of meeting Robert Mason alone in that dark lane, than any visitant from another world. I don't believe in ghosts. I never saw one, and never met with any person on whose word you could attach much credit, that could satisfactorily prove to you that he had. When you pushed him hard, it always came out that he was not the person who had seen it; but some one else who had related the tale to him, and he had every reason to believe it true. The farther you searched into the matter, the more indistinct and improbable the story became." "Ay, Bill Corbett; but you heard Bob declare that he has both seen and spoken to it, and the lad must know his own father."