Jona turns quite round towards the officer and says, "Who can tell? Probably of fever. He was three days in hospital and then died. It was God's will."

a

"Out of the way, Satan!" comes voice from the darkness. "Are you mad, you old dog? Why don't you use your eyes?"

"Drive quicker," says the fare. "At this rate we shall not arrive till tomorrow. Hurry your horse."

The driver stretches out his neck, raises himself on the box, and swings his whip with dubious grace. Once or twice he glances round at his passenger, but the officer has closed his eyes, and is evidently not inclined to play the part of listener. After his fare has got out at the Wiburger Street, Jona draws up in front of an inn and remains crouching motionless on the box. The snowflakes adorn him and his horse with a transparent coat of white. An hour passes, and yet another. Three young men pass by on the pavement, wrangling with one another, and stamping loudly with their galoshes; two of them are tall and thin, the third is short and hump

backed.

"Drive to the Police Bridge," cries the humpback. "There are three of us-twenty kopecks.

Jona draws up his reins and clicks his tongue. Twenty kopecks is barely a third of the fare; but just now he cares for nothing. Whether it is a rouble or whether it is five kopecks, it matters nothing to him so long as he gets listeners.

The young men get into the sleigh, pushing and scolding, all three trying to sit down on the seat, which only holds two-they dispute as to who shall sit and who stand.

After a good deal of grumbling and word-bandying, it is settled that the humpback, being the smallest, shall stand.

"Now then, get on," cries the humpback in husky tones as he stands behind the driver, his breath coming short and thick on Jona's neck.

"Go on-what a queer hat you have,

little brother!

I don't suppose you

could find such a miserable-looking thing in the whole of Petersburg." "Ho, ho, ho!" laughs Jona. "My hat is just what it is."

"It is just what it is, is it? Then hurry your horse a little. Are you going to drive like this the whole way? Do you want a knock on the head?"

"My head aches," said one of the others. "Yesterday, Waska and I went to Dumanskij's and drank three bottles of brandy."

"I cannot understand why people tell such lies," retorted the other, angrily. "You lie like a newspaper." "May the Almighty punish me if it is not true."

"It is as true as the saying that lice sneeze."

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Jona, "what merry gentlemen! God keep you in health!"

"The devil fly away with you!" exclaimed the humpback, wrathfully. "Will you drive properly, or not, you old donkey? Do you call that driving? Why don't you whip up your horse? Now then, you old rascal, again-a good hard blow."

Jona feels the moving body behind him, and notices how the humpback's voice shakes. He hears the abuse levelled at him, sees the young men, and the feeling of utter loneliness and desolation begins to give way a little. The humpback goes on abusing him until he can do so no longer, and begins to cough. The two others converse about a certain Natalia Petrovna. Jona turns and looks at them. A slight pause occurs in the conversation; he seizes the opportunity, and once more looking round he mur

murs:

"This week I lost-this week my son died."

"We must all die," sighed the humpback, wiping his lips as he stopped coughing. "Get on, get on. Really. gentlemen, I can no longer put up with this pace. When are we likely to reach our destination?"

"Give him the whip-hit him on the neck!"

"Are you asleep, old fool? I shall soon belabor you with my fists. If one talks gently to people of your kind one would have to walk. Do you hear, old house? Or don't you care a kopeck for all I say?"

Jona hears, much more than he feels, the blow on the neck which accompanies the words." "Ho, ho!" he laughs. "What merry gentlemen! God send you good health!" Without regard for his age or his evident distress of mind they abuse him and strike him; but he heeds it not, and, indeed, is rather pleased than otherwise, for it distracts his attention from the grief which gnaws at his bosom and oppresses him. One nail drives out another. If you tread on the tail of a cat who has toothache, she feels better directly.

overflow, it would overwhelm the world, although at present it is quite invisible. Sorrow oft hides itself in such unostentatious guise that it passes entirely unobserved even in broad daylight. Jona sees a man-servant with a sack in his hand, and decides to begin a conversation with him.

"My friend, what time is it?" he asks.

"Ten o'clock. What are you doing here? Drive on!"

Jona drives about ten paces further off, sits crouched upon his box, and abandons himself to his grief-he is at last convinced of the futility of his attempts to get sympathy from his fellow men. But scarcely five minutes have elapsed before he gathers up his reins, shivering as if in a sudden access of pain. He can no longer bear it.

"I? Ho, ho, what merry gentlemen! Only one wife remains for me-Mother Earth. Ho, ho, ho! that is to say, the grave! My son is dead, and yet I am alive. It is a queer thing that Death should have mistaken the address. Instead of coming to me, he went to my son." And Jona turned round to relate to the young men how his son died, when the humpback declared, with a sigh of relief, that, thank God, they have arrived at last.

He receives his twenty kopecks, and looks after the young men long after they have vanished into a dark entrance. Once more he is alone, and once more begins the feeling of utter loneliness. The grief that has been lulled for so short a time begins afresh to gnaw his heart-strings, and threatens to break them. Jona's eyes, full of grief, follow restlessly the masses of people who flit past him on both sides of the street. Amongst all these thousands is there not one who is prepared to listen to him? Nothing is so beautiful as human sympathy. But every body rushes past, leaving him alone with his sorrow. His sorrow is immeasurable, passing all bounds-if his breast were to burst, and his sorrow to

And as if the horse had guessed his thoughts, it breaks into a trot. Half an hour later, Jona is sitting by the big dirty stove. On the shelf above, on the floor below, on the benches around, everywhere men are sleeping. The atmosphere is stale and close. Jona looks at the sleeping figures, scratches his ear, and regrets having returned so early. "I have not even earned the price of a feed of oats," thinks he, "that is why I am so sad. A man who attends properly to his business, whose horse is well fed, and whose own stomach is full, is always happy. A young driver rises from the corner of the room, coughs sleepily, and goes to the water-jug.

"You are thirsty, brother?" asks Jona.

"As you see, I am thirsty."

"Ah, well, I hope you will enjoy your drink. But, brother, do you know that my son is dead? In hospital this week. You may perhaps have heard of it. It is quite a history."

Jona watches the effect of his words, but fails to perceive that they make any impression. The driver has covered up his head and is already asleep again. The old man sighs and scratches his ear. The thirst for sym

It is nearly a week since his son died, and he has not yet had an opportunity of talking over the misfortune with anybody. It is a thing to be discussed calmly, soberly. One must tell how the son fell sick, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. His funeral must be described, as well as the visit to the hospital to fetch away the dead man's clothes.

Away in a little village lives his orphan child. Anissja-she must be talked over. Is all this then little or nothing to talk about? The listener should sigh and groan, breathe broken words of sympathy. Women make particularly good listeners. Although they are mostly fools, still they generally begin to cry at once.

"I had better see to my horse," thinks Jona. "It will be time enough to sleep afterwards."

He dresses and goes to the horse's stall. He thinks about oats, hay, and the weather. When he is alone he dare not think of his son. To talk about him to some one else is all very well, but alone, to think of him, to recall his presence-that is beyond his strength.

"Are you feeding?" says Jona to his horse, as he sees its eyes shining in the darkness. "Well, eat away. When we can no longer pay for oats we must eat hay. Yes, I am too old for driving. My son ought to have driven, not I. He was a right good driver-he should have been alive now." Jona is silent for a little while and then begins again. "So it is, dear little mare, Kusmu Ionitsch is no more he desired to live longer-but he died without further ado. Suppose you had a foal, and that you were that foal's real live mother? -your foal desired to live long, but it died. Would you not be sad about it?"

The mare munches away, listens and breathes gently on her master's hand. With a sudden inspiration, Jona lates everything to his little mare.

re

From The Cornhill Magazine. GHOSTS AND RIGHT REASON. The editor has asked me to say something about ghosts and the ghostly: I therefore venture to make an appeal in favor of a rational treatment of the topic. It is certainly an objection to all such studies that they seem to lower the logical tone of most inquirers. One scarcely knows whether believers or unbelievers are the more prejudiced and the less reasonable. One devotee of modern science bids us reject the whole theme, because it may produce a recrudescence of superstition! This is worthy of "the dreadful consequences argufiers," as Professor Huxley called some of his orthodox opponents. We cannot reject Darwinism because it is wrested into an excuse for immortality by M. Daudet's "Strugforlifeur," or M. Bourget's "Disciple;" nor can we refuse to examine evidence for the SOcalled "ghostly" because it may encourage other fools in other follies. Truth is to be sought heedless of consequences; so the scientific people keep telling us.

On the other side, even scientific reasoners, eminent in their own field, when engaged on ghostly territory often neglect all rules of logic and common sense, if they are inclined to believe. They prefer the unestablished, unverified, barely conceivable, abnormal explanation to a well-understood vera causa, and think it more likely that a lady went to church "in the spirit" than that she went in a cab! They even err about plain matters of geography, through a recklessness which, in other speculations, would never tempt them.

If the Scribes and Pharisees (and Sadducees) of Science, on both sides, do thus err, who can marvel at the blunders of Publicans and Philistines, and Spiritualists? Whenever ghosts are spoken of certain elderly fallacies are invariably reproduced.

(1) "Nobody ever knew any one who had seen a ghost; we only meet people who know somebody who saw one." Taking "ghost" merely as a popular de

I know nothing about the nature of ghosts, I cannot answer the question; though the conduct of the embodied is often equally puzzling. Our ignorance is not a ground of disbelief, or a reason for refusing to try to know better. Most ghosts appear to me to be crazy, and all to be subject to curious limitations. We must beware, as in all other inquiries, of taking the a priori road. We cannot judge of a ghost by what we, a priori, expect a ghost to be and to do. He need not be wiser than an embodied soul; the evidence goes to show that he is generally much more foolish. And why not? Probably, as the Scotch say of an idiot, "he is not all there." The balance of him may be disgusted by his conduct, and hold him in high contempt. In a ghost story, "Castle Perilous," which I once contributed to the Cornhill, the ghost admitted this: he said he hoped that nothing silly or vulgar had occurred during his temporary lapse of consciousness. He was just like a courteous epileptic patient. If we are to be rational, then we must make allowances for our ignorance, and for the unknown laws and conditions of the unknown residuum of fact which may, or may not, produce the undetermined phenomenon roughly styled "a ghost." Suppose I die, and a shadowy thing, like me, prowls about; suppose that strange, inexplicable noises occur, and SO on. I protest against the theory that my immortal soul is entirely engaged in these pursuits. Something vaguely connected with me about as much of me as argon is of the atmosphere-may be hallucinating the public, or the maids; but the odds are that the balance of my surviving consciousness either knows nothing, or highly disapproves of, these performances. How such things can occur, if they do occur, I don't know; but then I know so little even of the embodied consciousness.

Let me give an example-I have given it elsewhere-of the scientific method with a ghost. A lady, known to me, visiting a house, was pestered all night by a ghost in armor. Next morning she found (what she had not hitherto con

sciously observed) a portrait of her visitor in the room. Mr. Sully, writing on "Illusions,” argued, very properly so far, that she had, unconsciously, seen the picture, which, therefore, haunted her dreams. He added that, curiously enough, other people were said to have undergone the same experience in the same room. Now the odds against such an unusual experience repeating itself several times, to different people, in the same room, are so very long as to demand further inquiry and explanation. These Mr. Sully did not make, or did not give. We all sleep in hundreds of rooms, among thousands of pictures, yet we do not see the subjects of pictures which we have not observed walking about. Why should one picture in one room produce, in various cases, such singular results? Just where the interest of the question of illusions begins Mr. Sully drops the question. Another step in quest of evidence and, in place of being a scientific psychologist, Mr. Sully would have become a psychical researcher! Not to take that step is the scientific method. If we select the ghostly for our province we find that the alleged facts fall into regular classes, recognized from all antiquity. Let us roughly set down the various categories, all of which true believers account for by the agency of "spirits," embodied or, more often, not embodied. Now the idea of "spirits" is a very early deduction of the human mind from misunderstood facts. All savages believe in disembodied spirits. To this opinion they have reasoned from observation of the phenomena of life, death, trance, sleep, dream, force, and so forth. All force, in brief, is exerted, they think, by an "I”— by a will of which the early reasoner believes himself to be conscious. What he believes about himself he applies to everything. He moves himself, and other objects, by, or after, an effort of mind and will; therefore all movements, all phenomena, are caused by mind and will. When there is no visible, tangible agent, then an invisible, intangible, but conscious will is supposed to be at work. That will is a spirit. Spirit can leave a