spices, a good and amiable man of between forty-five and fifty years, on
whom I never played any trick, except in the case of a pretty, young
servant girl whom he was courting, and whom I had juggled from him.

Satisfied with my discovery, I was racking my brain to invent a good
practical joke, but to obtain complete revenge it was necessary that my
trick should prove worse than the one he had played upon me.
Unfortunately my imagination was at bay. I could not find anything. A
funeral put an end to my difficulties.

Armed with my hunting-knife, I went alone to the cemetery a little after
midnight, and opening the grave of the dead man who had been buried that
very day, I cut off one of the arms near the shoulder, not without some
trouble, and after I had re-buried the corpse, I returned to my room with
the arm of the defunct. The next day, when supper was over, I left the
table and retired to my chamber as if I intended to go to bed, but taking
the arm with me I hid myself under Demetrio's bed. A short time after,
the Greek comes in, undresses himself, put his light out, and lies down.
I give him time to fall nearly asleep; then, placing myself at the foot
of the bed, I pull away the clothes little by little until he is half
naked. He laughs and calls out,

"Whoever you may be, go away and let me sleep quietly, for I do not
believe in ghosts;" he covers himself again and composes himself to
sleep.

I wait five or six minutes, and pull again at the bedclothes; but when he
tries to draw up the sheet, saying that he does not care for ghosts, I
oppose some resistance. He sits up so as to catch the hand which is
pulling at the clothes, and I take care that he should get hold of the