by weeks or months. He didn't seem to have energy enough even to read,
and so it was that Robbins sat down one day on the bench beside him,
and said sympathetically:--

"I hope you are feeling better to-day."

The Skeleton turned towards him, laughed a low, noiseless, mirthless
laugh for a moment, and then said, in a hollow, far-away voice that had
no lungs behind it: "I am done with feeling either better or worse."

"Oh, I trust it is not so bad as that," said Robbins; "the climate is
doing you good down here, is it not?"

Again the Skeleton laughed silently, and Robbins began to feel uneasy.
The Skeleton's eyes were large and bright, and they fastened themselves
upon Robbins in a way that increased that gentleman's uneasiness, and
made him think that perhaps the Skeleton knew he had so named him.

"I have no more interest in climate," said the Skeleton. "I merely seem
to live because I have been in the habit of living for some years; I
presume that is it, because my lungs are entirely gone. Why I can talk
or why I can breathe is a mystery to me. You are perfectly certain you
can hear me?"

"Oh, I hear you quite distinctly," said Robbins.

"Well, if it wasn't that people tell me that they can hear me, I
wouldn't believe I was really speaking, because, you see, I have
nothing to speak with. Isn't it Shakespeare who says something about
when the brains are out the man is dead? Well, I have seen some men who