at."

"It's a lie," was the brief rejoinder. "I don't believe any thing of the
kind."

"You d----d vagabond," cried Mr. Brown, snatching the long gun from my
hand and presenting it to the fellow's heart, "I have a strong desire to
blow your liver out."

"You wouldn't shoot a fellow with his own gun, would you?" the impudent
scamp asked, without manifesting any serious apprehension of our doing
so.

"Well, no, I hardly think that would be just," replied Mr. Brown,
lowering the muzzle of the gun, and beginning to think that he had met
with a strange customer, whom it was better to conciliate than to cross.

"Come, tell a feller who you is," the red-haired genius remarked "do you
belong to Buskin's gang, or is you on your own tramp?"

"Neither suggestion is correct--we are not bushrangers, and never expect
to be. We are men of the law. Now tell us who you are," my companion
said, calmly seating himself near the stranger, and lighting his
pipe,--a proceeding that appeared to interest him intensely, for he
snuffed the burning tobacco like a war horse within sight of a battle
field.

"Just give me one draw of that 'ere pipe first," pleaded the would-be
ghost, and his request was gratified.

"Real 'bacco, and a real clay pipe, by the bloody jingoes," he
exclaimed. "It's many a day since I've had a taste of 'em afore."

In fact the tobacco appeared to open his heart amazingly, and in a short
time we had his whole history.

"My name," the stranger said, "is Day Bly, although I'm commonly called
Day, for short. I was dragged up in London, and when I was twelve years
of age I was apprenticed to an undertaker. I used to take care of the
shop, clean the hearse, and sleep in a coffin, with old pieces of mouldy
velvet thrown over me to keep me warm in the night time.

"When I ate my meals, it was brought out of master's house by one of the
servant girls, and set on a pine coffin, such as we used to furnish the
poor devils who hadn't got much money, and who couldn't afford to go the
expensive ones. When we had a holiday, such as Christmas, I'd slyly move
the grub to one of the polished silver-plated affairs, and imagined that
I was seated at a real mahogany table, and I tell you things use to
taste better.

"I kept that up until one day I had a dish of meat, that, by some
mistake, never satisfactorily accounted for, was really warm, and it
took the polish from the slap-up affair, and left a white mark. For that
I got li