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.

"As the deeply-affected banker gazed upon this figure, he
sorrowfully murmured: 'Ah! that is the deep-voiced youth who last
week desired of me five hundred dollars to insure the publication
of his new novel of Fashionable Life, which was destined to
instantly sweep Dickens, Victor Hugo, Thackeray, and other
demoralizing writers from the field of literature.'

"'Yes!' said Mr. Pepper's Ghost, severely; 'and your miserly
refusal to aid struggling genius with your miserable wealth has
driven a giant intellect into the ladies' shoemaking business. In
which,' added the spectre, 'I am bound to say, that he is doing
tolerably well.'

"The guilty old banker buried his face in his trembling hands; and
when he looked up again, the vision had changed, and he saw before
him the inside of a soldier's tent on the banks of the Rapidan,
with two gentle Zouaves arraying themselves in their new uniforms,
which had just arrived. Owing to some trifling mental aberration,
accompanied by hiccups, which often attacks the members of an army
confined to damp localities, these two troops had somehow mistaken
their jackets for their pants, and were struggling with Herculean
strength to thrust their dainty nether limbs into the sleeves of
the first-named garments. After an animated struggle of about a
quarter of an hour, something was heard to tear; whereupon, one of
the Zouaves tore his fractured jacket from his limbs, and dashed it
furiously to the ground, hurling imprecations upon all hard-hearted
wretches who coined money by making clothing out of rotten rags for
the glorious defenders of their homes a