boots,--whether they're crazy or not! Well, he took on so, that
I'm blamed if at last that gal HERSELF didn't notice him! and she
ups, suddenly, and blows him a kiss--so! with her fingers!"

Whether this narration were exaggerated or not, it is certain that
the old man Downey every succeeding night of the performance was a
spectator. That he may have aspired to more than that was
suggested a day or two later in the following incident: A number
of the boys were sitting around the stove in the Magnolia saloon,
listening to the onset of a winter storm against the windows, when
Whisky Dick, tremulous, excited, and bristling with rain-drops and
information, broke in upon them.

"Well, boys, I've got just the biggest thing out. Ef I hadn't seed
it myself, I wouldn't hev believed it!"

"It ain't thet ghost ag'in?" growled Robinson, from the depths of
his arm-chair; "thet ghost's about played."

"Wot ghost?" asked a new-comer.

"Why, ole Mammy's ghost, that every feller about yer sees when he's
half full and out late o' nights."

"Where?"

"Where? Why, where should a ghost be? Meanderin' round her grave
on the hill, yander, in course."

"It's suthin bigger nor thet, pard," said Dick confidently; "no