"Wife," said I, next morning, "you will not be troubled with any more ticking in our table. I have put a stop to all that." "Indeed, husband," said she, with some incredulity. "Yes, wife," returned I, perhaps a little vaingloriously, "I have put a quietus upon that ticking. Depend upon it, the ticking will trouble you no more." In vain she besought me to explain myself. I would not gratify her; being willing to balance any previous trepidation I might have betrayed, by leaving room now for the imputation of some heroic feat whereby I had silenced the ticking. It was a sort of innocent deceit by implication, quite harmless, and, I thought, of utility. But when I went to breakfast, I saw my wife kneeling at the table again, and my girls looking ten times more frightened than ever. "Why did you tell me that boastful tale," said my wife, indignantly. "You might have known how easily it would be found out. See this crack, too; and here is the ticking again, plainer than ever." "Impossible," I explained; but upon applying my ear, sure enough, tick! tick! tick! The ticking was there. Recovering myself the best way I might, I demanded the bug. "Bug?" screamed Julia, "Good heavens, papa!" "I hope sir, you have been bringing no bugs into this house," said my wife, severely. "The bug, the bug!" I cried; "the bug under the tumbler." "Bugs in tumblers!" cried the girls; "not _our_ tumblers, papa? You have not been putting bugs into our tumblers? Oh, what does--what _does_ it all mean?" "Do you see this hole, this crack here?" said I, putting my finger on the spot. "That I do," said my wife, with high displeasure. "And how did it come there? What have you been doing to the table?" "Do you see this crack?" repeated I, intensely. "Yes, yes," said Julia; "that was what frightened me so; it looks so like witch-work." "Spirits! spirits!" cried Anna. "Silence!" said my wife. "Go on, sir, and tell us what you know of the crack." "Wife and daughters," said I, solemnly, "out of that crack, or hole, while I was sitting all alone here last night, a wonderful--" Here, involuntarily, I paused, fascinated by the expectant attitudes and bursting eyes of Julia and Anna. "What, what?" cried Julia. "A bug, Julia." "Bug?" cried my wife. "A bug come out of this table? And what did you do with it?" "Clapped it under a tumbler." "Biddy! Biddy!" cried my wife, going to the door. "Did you see a tumbler here on this table when you swept the room?" "Sure I did, marm, and 'bomnable bug under it." "And what did you do with it?" demanded I. "Put the bug in the fire, sir, and rinsed out the tumbler ever so many times, marm." "Where is that tumbler?" cried Anna. "I hope you scratched it--marked it some way. I'll never drink out of that tumbler; never put it before me, Biddy. A bug--a bug! Oh, Julia! Oh, mamma! I feel it crawling all over me, even now. Haunted table!" "Spirits! spirits!" cried Julia.