'I'll tell you,' he replied, with one of his odious grins. 'This is Cader Idris, ain't it? well, and you're a _cad awry dressed_, ain't you? Cader Idrissed, see?' (he was dastard enough to explain) 'That's how _I_ get at it!' He must have been laboriously leading up to that for the last ten minutes! I solemnly declare that it was not the personal outrage that roused me; I simply felt that a paltry verbal quibble of that description, emitted amidst such scenery and at that altitude, required a protest in the name of indignant Nature, and I protested accordingly, although with an impetuosity which I afterwards regretted, and of which I cannot even now entirely approve. He happened to be standing on the brink of an abyss, and had just turned his back upon me, as, with a vigorous thrust of my right foot, I launched him into the blue æther, with the chuckle at his unhallowed jest still hovering upon his lips. I am aware that by such an act I took a liberty which, under ordinary circumstances, even the licence of a life-long friendship would scarcely have justified; but I thought it only due to myself to let him see plainly that I desired our acquaintanceship to cease from that instant, and Barnjum was the kind of man upon whom a more delicate hint would have been distinctly thrown away. I watched his progress with some interest as he rebounded from point to point during his descent. I waited--punctiliously, perhaps, until the echoes he had aroused had died away on the breeze, and then, slowly and thoughtfully, I retraced my steps, and left a spot which was already becoming associated for me with memories the reverse of pleasurable. * * * * * I took the next up-train, and before I reached town had succeeded in dismissing the incident from my mind, or if I thought of it at all, it was only to indulge relief at the reflection that I had shaken off Barnjum for ever. But when I had paid my cab, and was taking out my latch-key, a curious thing happened--the driver called me back. 'Beg pardon, sir,' he said hoarsely, 'but I think you've bin and left something white in my cab!' I turned and looked in: there, grinning at me from the interior of the hansom, over the folding-doors, was the wraith of Barnjum! I had presence of mind enough to thank the man for his honesty, and go upstairs to my rooms with as little noise as possible. Barnjum's ghost, as I expected, followed me in, and sat down coolly before the fire, in my arm-chair, thus giving me an opportunity of subjecting the apparition to a thorough examination. It was quite the conventional ghost, filmy, transparent, and, though wanting firmness in outline, a really passable likeness of Barnjum. Before I retired to rest I had thrown both my boots and the contents of my bookcase completely through the thing, without appearing to cause it more than a temporary inconvenience--which convinced me that it was indeed a being from another world.