suppose
a man would often be very angry indeed when he found that there was
another being who was personating himself."

"Oh! the cases are not similar at all," said the ghost. "A double or
_doppelgaenger_ lives on the earth with a man; and, being exactly like
him, he makes all sorts of trouble, of course. It is very different with
me. I am not here to live with Mr. Hinckman. I am here to take his
place. Now, it would make John Hinckman very angry if he knew that.
Don't you know it would?"

I assented promptly.

"Now that he is away I can be easy for a little while," continued the
ghost; "and I am so glad to have an opportunity of talking to you. I
have frequently come into your room, and watched you while you slept,
but did not dare to speak to you for fear that if you talked with me Mr.
Hinckman would hear you, and come into the room to know why you were
talking to yourself."

"But would he not hear you?" I asked.

"Oh, no!" said the other: "there are times when anyone may see me, but
no one hears me except the person to whom I address myself."

"But why did you wish to speak to me?" I asked.

"Because," replied the ghost, "I like occasionally to talk to people,
and especially to someone like yourself, whose mind is so troubled and
perturbed that you are not likely to be frightened by a visit from one
of us. But I particularly wanted to ask you to do me a favor. There is
every probability, so far as I can see, that John Hinckman will live a
long time, and my situation is becoming insupportable. My great object
at present is to get myself transferred, and I think that you may,
perhaps, be of use to me."

"Transferred!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean by that?"

"What I mean," said the other, "is this: Now that I have started on my
career I have got to be the ghost of somebody, and I want to be the
ghost of a man who is really dead."

"I should think that would be easy enough," I said. "Opportunities must
continually occur."

"Not at all! not at all!" said my companion quickly. "You have no idea
what a rush and pressure there is for situations of this kind. Whenever
a vacancy occurs, if I may express myself in that way, there are crowds
of applications for the ghost-ship."

"I had no idea that such a state of things existed," I said, becoming
quite interested in the matter. "There ought to be some regular system,
or order of precedence, by which you could all take your turns like
customers in a barber's