night, betake thee to some great tragedian when Shakspeare's murder lies heavy on his soul.' Mr. Pepper's Ghost winked with great archness as it replied: 'Ghosts have no terrors for the sons of Thespis, who are even merry with a ghost--of a chance to get their salaries. My mission is to you, to whom I must a wholesome lesson teach. Behold!' "The spirit waved its hand, and lo! one whole side of the vile banker's chamber fell magically away, disclosing to view a room entirely destitute of velvet carpet and pictures by the Old Masters. On a sofa reclined a middle-aged young girl, whose poor dress of braidless merino was so inclemently low in the neck as to suggest for its down-trodden wearer a purse too scanty to procure a sufficiency of material. The daughter of penury had just reached the hundred and fifty-second exciting page of the cheap but excellent work of fiction she was reading, when a door opened and her crushed husband entered, smoking his meerschaum. "'Old boy,' said the Ghost, 'do you remember that man?' "'Yes,' responded the banker, sadly; 'he came to me yesterday for some money to keep him from starvation; and as he would not take 'greenbacks,' I did not help him.' "'Listen,' said the Ghost. "The crushed husband threw himself into a chair which was not covered with Solferino satin, and ate a peanut. "'Well, what luck?' asked the daughter of penury. "'Old Pursimmons has refused, and I'-- "'And you!!'-- "'Must'-- "'Must?'-- "'_Support myself!!!_' "It was too much. The daughter of penury fainted, the crushed husband sniffed aloud, and the landlady knocked at the door for the week's board. "As this agonizing picture of human misery faded away, old Pursimmons turned with an inaudible groan to Mr. Pepper's Ghost: "'And I,' said he,--'and I am the cause of this woe?' "The spectre silently and solemnly nodded an awful affirmative, and waved its hand for another scene. "This time, the presentment was the interior of a shop, around which were shelves full of boxes containing all sorts of delicious little gaiters, ties, slippers, bootees and kid pumps, whilst the same kind of articles hung suspended from various hooks and pegs on the wall. On a bench in one corner of this shop, busily working upon a dainty pink satin gaiter-boot, was a narrow young man of pensive countenance, weak eyes, pink nose and an intellectual head of hair, in a workman's paper cap manufactured from an admirable weekly journal of romance.