"This is no place for the likes of you, who come, mayhap, from the city of Yang or some other abode of disembodied spirits--you, who come for mischief and pay harbourage with mischance--is it likely you could eat wholesome food ?" "Indeed I could, and plenty of it, seeing I have dined and breakfasted along the hedges with the blackbirds this two days.

Look here, I will pay in advance.

Will that get me a meal ?" and, whipping out my knife, cut off another of my fast-receding coat buttons.
The man took it with great interest, as I hoped he would, the yellow metal being apparently a very scarce commodity in his part of the planet.
"Gold ?" he asked.
"Well--ahem! I forgot to ask the man who sewed them on for me what they were exactly, but it looks like gold, doesn't it ?" "Yes," he answered, turning it to and fro admiringly in his hand, "you are the first ghost I ever knew to pay in advance, and plenty of them go to and fro through here.

Such a pretty thing is well worth a meal--if, indeed, you can stomach our rough fare.

Here, you woman within," he called to the lady whom I presume was his wife, "here is a gentleman from the nether regions who wants some breakfast and has paid in advance.