"And if one must be a wrongful ghost at all," the apparition
continued, "it would be much pleasanter to be the ghost of some man
other than John Hinckman. There is in him an irascibility of temper,
accompanied by a facility of invective, which is seldom met with. And
what would happen if he were to see me, and find out, as I am sure he
would, how long and why I had inhabited his house, I can scarcely
conceive. I have seen him in his bursts of passion, and, although he
did not hurt the people he stormed at any more than he would hurt me,
they seemed to shrink before him."
All this I knew to be very true. Had it not been for this peculiarity
of Mr. Hinckman, I might have been more willing to talk to him about
his niece.
"I feel sorry for you," I said, for I really began to have a
sympathetic feeling toward this unfortunate apparition. "Your case is
indeed a hard one. It reminds me of those persons who have had
doubles, and I suppose a man would often be very angry indeed when he
found that there was another being who was personating himself."
"Oh, the cases are not similar at all," said the ghost. "A double or
doppelganger lives on the earth with a man, and, being exactly like
him, he makes all sorts of trouble, of course. It is very different
with me. I am not here to live with Mr. Hinckman. I am here to take
his place. Now, it would make John Hinckman very angry if he knew
that. Don't you know it would?"