"'No!' I answered shortly, 'I am not well. I might be much better if you'd confine yourself to the cemetery to which you belong.'
"'Reparteedious as ever!' he retorted.
"'I don't know the word,' I replied; 'it belongs to neither a dead nor a live language.'
"'But it's a good word, nevertheless,' observed the ghost quietly,' and I advise you to think of it whenever you are inclined to indulge in stupid repartee. It may help you in your career,—but I have come for an answer to my proposition.'"
"He was right about reparteedious," said Hopkins, interrupting the spirit's story; "that's a good word, and unless you have it copyrighted I think I'll open the doors of my vocabulary and admit it to the charmed circle of my verbiage."
"No, I have no copyright on it," replied the spirit, gazing at Hopkins with as sad an expression as could possibly be assumed, considering the imperturbability of Aunt Sallie's countenance. "You may have it for your vocabulary, Hopkins, but if you will take a little well-meant advice you had better be very careful about your word collection. Your frequent and flippant interruptions of my sad story lead me to fear that you are overworking your vocabulary, which is a very dangerous thing for a young man of your age and intelligence to do.
"But to resume my tale," continued the spirit, after waiting a moment for Hopkins to reply to his suggestion, which Hopkins seemed not to hear, so busy was he looking for his memorandum book on his table,—a table so littered up with papers and silver paraphernalia for writing that no portion of its polished surface was visible. "I told my unwelcome guest that I had no answer to give him; that, as I was not a believer in the supernatural, I did not intend to waste my time in parleying with a figment of my brain.
"'You are cautious enough to have been a policeman,' he said in response to this. 'But caution in this instance is a vice.'
"'Caution is not a vice when a spirit of your evil aspect enters one's office in the dead of night, and asks for the loan of one's body,' I answered. 'I should be more justified in lending my diamond-stud to a sneak thief to wear to a lawn-tennis party at the Duke of Devonshire's, than in acquiescing in your scheme.'
"'Then you do not care to become a great man, to assure yourself of a fortune beyond your wildest dreams, to put yourself in such a position that she whom you love will be unable to resist your proposal of marriage?'