respectable appearance, I might, perhaps, have courage enough to say
with Hamlet,


"Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee!"


Stranger.--Then, sir, let me introduce myself in that character, now
that our conversation has conducted us so happily to the point. I
told you truly that I was English by birth, but that I came from a
more distant country than America, and had long been naturalised
there. The country whence I come is not the New World, but the
other one: and I now declare myself in sober earnest to be a ghost.

Montesinos.--A ghost!

Stranger.--A veritable ghost, and an honest one, who went out of the
world with so good a character that he will hardly escape
canonisation if ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne.
And now what test do you require?

Montesinos.--I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle
burns as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its
flame. You look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be
disposed to give entire belief to that countenance, if it were not
for the tongue that belongs to it. But you are a queer spirit,
whether good or evil!

Stranger.--The headsman thought so, when he made a ghost of me