I was continually beset, and frequently, when more than usually busy, thoroughly annoyed by the innuendoes of my visitors, that I was the father of "the Ghost." "Come, now, Mr. Barnum--this is going a little too far!" some good old dame or grandfather would say to me. "You oughtn't to scare people in this way. These ghosts are ugly customers!" "My dear Sir," or "Madam," I would say, as the case might be, "I do assure you I know nothing whatever about the Ghost"--and as for "spirits," you know I never touch them, and have been preaching against them nearly all my life." "Well! well! you will have the last turn," they'd retort, as they edged away; "but you needn't tell us. We guess we've found the ghost." Now, all I can add about this strange hallucination is, that those who came to me to see the original "Carter," really saw the "Elephant." The wonderful apparition disappeared, at length, as suddenly as he had come. The "Bull's-Eye Brigade," as the squad of police put on duty to watch the neighborhood, for various reasons, was termed, hung to their work, and flashed the light of their lanterns into the faces of lonely couples, for some time afterward; but quiet, at length, settled down over all: and it has been it seems, reserved for my pen to record briefly the history of "The Twenty-seventh street Ghost." CHAPTER XXXII. THE MOON-HOAX. The most stupendous scientific imposition upon the public that the generation with which we are numbered has known, was the so-called "Moon-Hoax," published in the columns of the "New York Sun," in the months of August and September, 1835. The sensation created by this immense imposture, not only throughout the United States, but in every part of the civilized world, and the consummate ability with which it was written, will render it interesting so long as our language shall endure; and, indeed, astronomical science has actually been indebted to it for many most valuable hints--a circumstance that gives the production a still higher claim to immortality.