Meanwhile
I walked a little about the neighborhood, which is very dull and
uninteresting; made up of crescents and terraces, and rows of houses that
have no individuality, and second-rate shops,--in short, the outskirts of
the vast city, when it begins to have a kind of village character but no
rurality or sylvan aspect, as at Blackheath. My journey, when at last we
started, was quite unmarked by incident, and extremely tedious; it being
a slow train, which plods on without haste and without rest. At about
ten o'clock we reached Birkenhead, and there crossed the familiar and
detestable Mersey, which, as usual, had a cloudy sky brooding over it.
Mrs. Blodgett received me most hospitably, but was impelled, by an
overflow of guests, to put me into a little back room, looking into
the court, and formerly occupied by my predecessor, General
Armstrong. . . . . She expressed a hope that I might not see his
ghost,--nor have I, as yet.
Speaking of ghosts, Mr. H. A. B------ told me a singular story to-day of
an apparition that haunts the Times Office, in Printing-House Square. A
Mr. W------ is the engineer of the establishment, and has his residence
in the edifice, which is built, I believe, on the site of Merchant
Taylor's school,--an old house that was no longer occupied for its
original purpose, and, being supposed haunted, was left untenanted. The
father-in-law of Mr. W------, an old sea-captain, came on a visit to him
and his wife, and was put into their guest-chamber, where he passed the
night.
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