When Forrester was gone, they immediately took him to pieces. His character, habits, life, and opinions, furnished them with abundant materials for commentary, which they were all the less scrupulous in dealing freely with because they really knew little or nothing about him. One said that there was a mysterious something about Forrester that he couldn't make out--it might be all right, but, for his part, he liked people to be candid with you and above-board; another remarked, that a man who lived nobody knew exactly how, and who disappeared every night at pretty much the same hour, and was so very incommunicative about his pursuits, laid himself open to suspicion, at all events; a third suggested that, probably, he had experienced some blight, which had spoiled him for company--perhaps he had been crossed in love (here there was a general laugh, and a rapid succession of puns); while a fourth, who made it a rule never to form a judgment on any man's character without knowing him thoroughly, could not help observing that Mr. Forrester certainly held some rather extraordinary doctrines about ghosts and other nonsense of that sort, which, to be sure, was no imputation on his character, but--here the speaker stopped short, and shook his head in a very significant manner. These opinions, delivered off-hand, puzzled me exceedingly, for I could not arrive at their meaning. It was evident that Forrester was an object of mystery to our friends--and so he was to me. But neither they nor I could get any farther in the matter. They, however, dismissed him from their minds with the drain of their glasses, while I lay restlessly all night ruminating on what had occurred.