If the other 'Amlets had been so amusing as him, the house would have been full--packed.

Ha! now you say it, he was a gentleman, this poor Monsieur le Ghost.

He held himself apart from the noisy company, and sulk in a corner, while they laugh, and drink, and sing the song.

They were afraid of him, and, _mon dieu_! they might be--for once, when Monsieur Rosencrantz, as I remember, came and threw some absinthe--my absinthe, messieurs--in his face, Monsieur le Ghost he knocked him down with a blow that sounded--oh, like a clap of the thunder.

And this pauvre ghost," added the man, "was monsieur's brother! _Helas_! he was come down very poor--his coat was rags, and his boots were open to the water of heaven.