divert yourself by walking up and down and playing some merry
tricks with the murderer." "Oh, sir," returned he, "I had not
that privilege, I was lawfully put to death. In short, a
physician set me on fire, by giving me medicines to throw out my
distemper. I died of a hot regimen, as they call it, in the
small-pox."

[4] Those who have read of the gods sleeping in Homer will not
be surprised at this happening to spirits.

One of the spirits at that word started up and cried out, "The
small-pox! bless me! I hope I am not in company with that
distemper, which I have all my life with such caution avoided,
and have so happily escaped hitherto!" This fright set all the
passengers who were awake into a loud laughter; and the
gentleman, recollecting himself, with some confusion, and not
without blushing, asked pardon, crying, "I protest I dreamed that
I was alive." "Perhaps, sir," said I, "you died of that
distemper, which therefore made so strong an impression on you."
"No, sir," answered he, "I never had it in my life; but the
continual and dreadful apprehension it kept me so long under
cannot, I see, be so immediately eradicated. You must know,
sir, I avoided coming to London for thirty years together, for
fear of the small-pox, till the most urgent business brought me
thither about five days ago. I was so dreadfully afraid of this
disease that I refused the second night of my arrival to sup with
a friend whose wife had recovered of it several months before,
and the same evening got a surfeit by eating too many muscles,
which brought me into this good company."