ake, "Faix, mister, and is yer name
Charley?" It was then that he rose in bed and uttered the exclamation
which I set down in the first line of this story. Charley Vanderhuyn
could not tell whether he meant Charles Dickens or Nick. Perhaps you
can. Indeed, it doesn't seem to matter much, after all.

III.

A narrative of this sort, like a French sermon, divides itself into
three parts. I have now got through the preliminary tanglements of the
history of the founding of the Christmas Club, and I hope to be able to
tell the remainder of the story with as few digressions as possible,
for at Christmastide a body doesn't want his stories to stretch out to
eternity, even if they are ghostly.

Charley Vanderhuyn said "The Dickens!" and though his meaning was
indefinite, he really meant it, whatever it might be. He looked up at
the ornamental figure carved on the rich headboard of his bed as if he
suspected that the headboard of English walnut had spoken in Irish. He
looked at the headboard intently a long time, partly because the Irish
voice had come from that direction, and partly because he was afraid to
look round toward the table. He _knew_, just as well before he looked
around as he did afterward, what he should see. He saw it before he
looked round by some other vision than that of his eyes, and that was
what made him shiver so. He knew that the persistent gray eyes were
upon him, that they would never move until he looked round. _He could
feel the look before he saw it._

At last he turned slowly. Sure enough, in that very chair by the table
sat the Presence, the Ghost--the--it was Henry Vail; or was it? There,
in the dim light, was the aquiline nose like an eagle's beak, there
were the steady, unwavering gray eyes, with that same earnest, wistful
look fastened on Vanderhuyn; the features were Vail's, but the face was
plowed and pitted fearfully as with the smallpox. All this Charley saw,
while seeing through the ghost and beyond--the carving on the rosewood
dressing case was quite as visible through the unsubstantial apparition
as before. Charley was not ordinarily superstitious, and he quickly
reasoned that his excited imagination had confounded the features of
Harry Vail's face with the pock-marked visage of the Huckleberry Street
Irish woman. So he shook himself, rubbed his eyes and looked again.
The apparition this time was much more distinct, and it lifted the
paper weight, as Henry had three weeks before. Ch