d object to that--there would be no difficulty in
his obtaining a livelihood in our town.

"If you want regular employment," I said, "I think you can easily find
it."

"I want it," he answered, his face clouded by a troubled expression,
"but I cannot take it."

"Cannot take it!" I exclaimed.

"No," he said, "I am not my own master. I am as much a slave as any
negro hereabouts!"

I was rather surprised at this meaningless allusion, but contented
myself with asking him what he meant by not being his own master.

He looked on the floor and then he looked at me, with a steady, earnest
gaze. "I should like well to tell you my story," he said. "I have been
ordered not to tell it, but I have resolved that when I should meet a
man to whom I should be moved to speak I would speak."

Now, I felt a very natural emotion of pride. My perception of objects
of interest was a quick and a correct one. "Speak on," I said, "I shall
be very glad to hear what you have to say."

He looked toward the open door. I arose and closed it. When I had
resumed my seat he drew his chair closer to me, leaned toward me, and
said:

"In the first place you should know that I am a materialized spirit."

I sat up, hard pressed against the back of my chair.

"Nay, start not," he said, "I am now as truly flesh and blood as you
are; but a short three weeks ago I was a spirit in the realms of endless
space. I know," he continued, "that my history is a sore thing to
inflict upon any man, and there are few to whom I would have broached
it, but I will make it brief. Three weeks ago these spiritualists held
privately in this town what they call a seance, and at that time I was
impelled, by a power I understood not, to appear among them. After I had
come it was supposed that a mistake had been made, and that I was not
the spirit wanted. In the temporary confusion occasioned by this
supposition, and while the attention of the exhibitors was otherwise
occupied, I was left exposed to the influence of the materializing
agencies for a much longer time than had been intended; so long,
indeed, that instead of remaining in the misty, indistinct form in which
spirits are presented by these men to their patrons, I became as
thoroughly embodied, as full of physical life and energy, and as
complete a mortal man as I was when I disappeared from this earth, one
hundred and two years ago."

"One hundred and two years!" I mechanically ejaculated. There was upon
me t