f his
ghostship in Twenty-seventh street.

One fine Sunday morning, in the early part of 1863, my friends of the
"Sunday Mercury" astonished their many thousands of patrons with an
account that had been brought to them of a fearful spectre that had made
its appearance in one of the best houses in Twenty-seventh Street. The
narrative was detailed with circumstantial accuracy, and yet with an
apparent discreet reserve, that gave the finishing touch of delightful
mystery to the story.

The circumstances, as set forth in the opening letter (for many others
followed) were briefly these:--A highly respectable family residing on
Twenty-seventh Street, one of our handsome up-town thoroughfares, became
aware, toward the close of the year 1862, that something extraordinary
was taking place in their house, then one of the best in the
neighborhood. Sundry mutterings and whisperings began to be heard among
the servants employed about the domicile, and, after a little while it
became almost impossible to induce them to remain there for love or
money. The visitors of the family soon began to notice that their calls,
which formerly were so welcome, particularly among the young people of
the establishment, seemed to give embarrassment, and that the smiles
that greeted them, as early as seven in the evening gradually gave place
to uneasy gestures, and, finally to positive hints at the lateness of
the hour, or the fatigue of their host by nine o'clock.

The head of the family was a plain, matter-of-fact old gentleman, by no
means likely to give way to any superstitious terrors--one of your
hard-headed business men who pooh-poohed demons, hobgoblins, and all
other kinds of spirits, except the purest Santa Cruz and genuine old
Otard; and he fell into a great rage, when upon his repeated gruff
demands for an explanation, he was delicately informed that his parlor
was "haunted." He vowed that somebody wanted to drive him from the
house; that there was a conspiracy afoot among the women to get him
still higher up town, and into a bigger brown-stone front, and refused
to believe one word of the ghost-story. At length, one day, while
sitting in his "growlery," as the ladies called it, in the lower story,
his attention was aroused by a clatter on the stairs, and looking out
into the entry he saw a party of carpenters and painters who had been
employed upon the parlor-floor, beating a precipitate retreat toward the
front door.

"Stop!--stop!