All at once there came a sharp tap at my door, and another figure strode solemnly in. This, too, wore the semblance of Barnjum, but was cast in a more substantial mould, and possessed the power of speech, as I gathered from its addressing me instantly as a cowardly villain. I started back, and stood behind an arm-chair, facing those two forms, the shadow and the solid, with a feeling of sick despair. 'Listen to me,' I said, 'both of you: so long as your--your original proprietor was content with a single wraith, I put up with it; I did not enjoy myself--but I endured it. But a _brace_ of apparitions is really carrying the thing too far; it's more than any one man's fair allowance, and I won't stand it. I defy the pair of you. I will find means to escape you. I will leave the world! Other people can be ghosts as well as you--it's not a monopoly! If you don't go directly, I shall blow my brains out!' There was no firearm of any description in the house, but I was too excited for perfect accuracy. 'Blow your brains out by all means!' said the solid figure; 'I don't know what all this nonsense you're talking is about. I'm not a ghost that I'm aware of; I'm alive (no thanks to you); and, to come back to the point--scoundrel!' 'Barnjum--and alive!' I cried, almost with relief. 'If that is so,' I added, feeling that I had been imposed upon in a very unworthy and ungentlemanly manner, 'will you have the goodness to tell me what right you have to this ridiculous apparition here?' He did not seem to have noticed it particularly till then. 'Hullo!' he said, looking at it with some curiosity, 'what d'ye call _that_ thing?' 'I call it a beastly nuisance!' I said. 'Ever since--since I last saw you, it's been following me about everywhere in a--in a very annoying manner!' Will it be believed that the unfeeling brute only chuckled at this? '_I_ don't know anything about it,' he said, 'but all I can say is that it serves you jolly well right, and I hope it will go on annoying you.' 'This is ungenerous,' I said, determined to appeal to any better feelings he might have; 'we did not part on--on the best of terms perhaps----' 'Considering that you kicked me over a precipice when I wasn't looking,' he retorted brutally, 'we may take that as admitted.' 'But, at all events,' I argued, 'it is ridiculous to cherish an old grudge all this time; you must see the absurdity of it yourself.' 'No, I don't,' he said.