‘Who are you?’ ‘Don’t throw that poker at me,’ replied the form; ‘if you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its force on the wood behind. I am a spirit.’ ‘And pray, what do you want here?’ faltered the tenant. ‘In this room,’ replied the apparition, ‘my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief, and long-deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night⁠—the only period at which I can revisit the earth⁠—about the scenes of my long-protracted misery. This apartment is mine: leave it to me.’ ‘If you insist upon making your appearance here,’ said the tenant, who had had time to collect his presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost’s, ‘I shall give up possession with the greatest pleasure; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me.’ ‘Say on,’ said the apparition sternly.