broken chair, the man floated up to the ceiling, crossed his legs, folded his arms as if he was lying on a sofa, and grinned down at me.  When I came to myself he was down from the ceiling, and, taking me out of the broken cane-bottomed chair, kindly enough—­“Bah!” said he, “it is the smell of my medicine.  It often gives the vertigo.  I thought you would have had a little fit.  Come into the open air.”  And we went down the steps, and into Shepherd’s Inn, where the setting sun was just shining on the statue of Shepherd; the laundresses were traipsing about; the porters were leaning against the railings; and the clerks were playing at marbles, to my inexpressible consolation.

“You said you were going to dine at the ‘Gray’s-inn Coffee-house,’” he said.  I was.  I often dine there.  There is excellent wine at the “Gray’s-inn Coffee-house;” but I declare I never said so.  I was not astonished at his remark; no more astonished than if I was in a dream.  Perhaps I was in a dream.  Is life a dream?  Are dreams facts?  Is sleeping being really awake?  I don’t know.  I tell you I am puzzled.  I have read “The Woman in White,” “The Strange Story”—­not to mention that story “Stranger than Fiction” in the Cornhill Magazine—­that story for which three credible witnesses are ready to vouch.  I have had messages from the dead; and not only from the dead, but from people who never existed at all.  I own I am in a state of much bewilderment:  but, if you please, will proceed with my simple, my artless story.

Well, then.  We passed from Shepherd’s Inn into Holborn, and looked for a while at Woodgate’s bric-a-brac shop, which I never can pass without delaying at the windows—­indeed, if I were going to be hung, I would beg the cart to stop, and let me have one look more at that delightful omnium gatherum.  And passing Woodgate’s, we come to Gale’s little shop, “No. 47,” which is also a favorite haunt of mine.

Mr. Gale happened to be at his door, and as we exchanged salutations, “Mr. Pinto,” I said, “will you like to see a real curiosity in this curiosity shop?  Step into Mr. Gale’s little back room.”

In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs; there are old Saxe and Sevres plates; there is Furstenberg, Carl Theodor, Worcester, Amstel, Nankin and other jimcrockery.  And in the corner what do you think there is?  There is an actual guillotine.  If you doubt me, go and see—­Gale, High Holborn, No. 47.  It is a slim instrument, much slighter than those which they make now;—­some nine feet high, narrow, a pretty piece of upholstery enough.  There is the hook over which the rope used to play which unloosened the dreadful axe above; and look! dropped into the orifice where the head used to go—­there is the axe itself, all rusty, with A great notch in the Blade.