But his angelic ghost story was absolutely terrific; after having worked one up to the highest pitch of excitement, the denouement came so entirely unexpected. With a low, sepulchral tone, he would say, “I was mad with apprehension; and in an agony which I could not repress, I sprung up like a maniac, clutched the apparition in my arms, and came down _like a dog_, and broke both my shins on a d—d chair!—instead of an angel, I grasped a white gown, perhaps smock, of some Italian trollop.” * * * * * The invisible and mysterious personage who had, as I supposed, so pertinaciously haunted the door of my chambers, was a large, heavy man, employed as a porter in a shop near Temple Bar. His wife was a respectable laundress, who, unknown to me, occupied the basement of the house. The entrance hall was rather dark, and as I had just taken possession, I had not observed a narrow passage which, by proceeding a few steps beyond the foot of the stairs leading _up_, led to a staircase going _down_, having exactly the same number of steps, and, in consequence of the whole staircase from bottom to top being a species of conductor, the sound of footsteps going down was conveyed up so perfectly, that to any one sitting in my rooms it was impossible for the nicest ear to tell, whether the person was coming up or going down; and the floor of the basement being of brick, the sound was lost the moment it was trodden on. I was perfectly dumb-foundered when I saw the big fellow pass quietly by me without taking the least notice; and I felt a mighty inclination for a fight, in consequence of his having so cruelly disappointed and mocked my determined belief in a ghost. But, like Mr. Van Buren, “sober second thought,” induced me to retrace my steps, and walk quietly up stairs, somewhat like a president walking down, when he is unexpectedly turned to the right-about. My Andrea Ferrara was hung upon its peg, from which it was never afterward removed, during all the unhappy years I afterwards passed as a Templar in those old-fashioned rooms. What reminiscences do they not now revive? * * * * * The vexatious annoyances to which my friend, Mr. Crofton, was so long subjected, arose from an admirably concocted scheme of female waggery, in which a youth bore a principal part; but to render its details intelligible, it is, as formerly hinted, necessary to digress a little into history. In the year 1794, during the frenzy excited by the French Revolution, when every throne in Europe was shaken to its centre, a society was formed in London for the pretended _reform_, although it was in _fact_ for the overthrow of the English Government.