upon the back of the seat near him, did my mind associate him
wildly with the words, 'Number one hundred and forty-two, Portrait
of a gentleman'? Could it be that I was going mad?

I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my affidavit that
he belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield's family. Whether he was the
Vicar, or Moses, or Mr. Burchill, or the Squire, or a
conglomeration of all four, I knew not; but I was impelled to seize
him by the throat, and charge him with being, in some fell way,
connected with the Primrose blood. He looked up at the rain, and
then - oh Heaven! - he became Saint John. He folded his arms,
resigning himself to the weather, and I was frantically inclined to
address him as the Spectator, and firmly demand to know what he had
done with Sir Roger de Coverley.

The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, returned upon
me with redoubled force. Meantime, this awful stranger,
inexplicably linked to my distress, stood drying himself at the
funnel; and ever, as the steam rose from his clothes, diffusing a
mist around him, I saw through the ghostly medium all the people I
have mentioned, and a score more, sacred and profane.

I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon me, as it
thundered and lightened, to grapple with this man, or demon, and
plunge him over the side. But, I constrained myself - I know not
how - to speak to him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the
deck, and said:

'What are you?'