and easy, and is all damaged and battered up till she looks like a

queensware crate in ruins--maybe you have met her?"

God forbid!" I involuntarily ejaculated, for somehow I was not looking

for that form of question, and it caught me a little off my guard. But I

hastened to make amends for my rudeness, and say, "I simply meant I had

not had the honor--for I would not deliberately speak discourteously of a

friend of yours. You were saying that you were robbed--and it was a

shame, too--but it appears by what is left of the shroud you have on that

it was a costly one in its day. How did--"

A most ghastly expression began to develop among the decayed features and

shriveled integuments of my guest's face, and I was beginning to grow

uneasy and distressed, when he told me he was only working up a deep,

sly smile, with a wink in it, to suggest that about the time he acquired

his present garment a ghost in a neighboring cemetery missed one. This

reassured me, but I begged him to confine himself to speech thenceforth,

because his facial expression was uncertain. Even with the most

elaborate care it was liable to miss fire. Smiling should especially be

avoided. What HE might honestly consider a shining success was likely to

strike me in a very different light. I said I liked to see a skeleton

cheerful, even decorously playful, but I did not think smiling was a

skeleton's best hold.

Yes, friend," said the poor skeleton, "the facts are just as I have

given them to you. Two of these old graveyards---the one that I resided

Sketches New and Old