Date: 1893-12-31T22:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ghost Stories; Fantasy and Folklore; Christmas; Wit and Humor; Social Commentary
Description: Bangs’ satirical tongue-in-cheek humor pokes fun at traditional beliefs about the supernatural, and at the writer, his contemporaries and critics, and social customs. Presented here, a gathering of ghost stories, a smattering of science fiction, and a group of contemporary pseudo-fables (the Hans Pumpernickel tales). A select few pieces are chilling or eerie rather than humorous (“Carleton Barker, First and Second,” “The Literary Remains of Thomas Bragdon”). * * * * Dive in when you need a chuckle at Halloween, Christmas, or any time.
Publisher: MobileRead
Rights: Public domain in countries where the copyright term is “Life+90” or less, and in the USA.

A Ghostly Compendium

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

CONTENTS:

About This eBook
The Water Ghost and Others
Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others
Over the Plum-Pudding

About this eBook

A Ghostly Compendium

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
(1862–1922)

The Water Ghost
and Others (1894)

Ghosts I Have Met
and Some Others (1898)

Over the Plum-Pudding (1901)

Bangs’ satirical tongue-in-cheek humor pokes fun at traditional beliefs about the supernatural, and at the writer, his contemporaries and critics, and social customs. Presented here, a gathering of ghost stories, a smattering of science fiction, and a group of contemporary pseudo-fables (the Hans Pumpernickel tales). A select few pieces are chilling or eerie rather than humorous (“Carleton Barker, First and Second,” “The Literary Remains of Thomas Bragdon”).

Dive in when you need a chuckle at Halloween, Christmas, or any time.

* * * *

John Kendrick Bangs (May 27, 1862 – January 21, 1922) was an American author, humorist, satirist, editor and lecturer. Between 1884 and 1906, he worked as editor at a number of magazines, among them Life, Munsey’s, The New Metropolitan, the Harper’s magazines, and the foremost humor magazine of its day, Puck. A highly popular and prolific writer, he had more than sixty books published.

He was the creator of modern “Bangsian fantasy,” which sets the plot wholly or partially in the afterlife, with important literary and historical personalities humorously portrayed as characters.

This ebook was created by ECM for MobileRead.com, January 2019, and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

The contents of this book were first published 1894, 1898, 1901.

Text is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is “Life+90” or less, and in the USA.

Click here for editing notes.

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The Water Ghost
AND OTHERS

CONTENTS:

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall
The Specter Cook of Bangletop
The Speck on the Lens
A Midnight Visitor
A Quicksilver Cassandra
The Ghost Club
A Psychical Prank
The Literary Remains of Thomas Bragdon

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The Water Ghost
of Harrowby Hall

The trouble with Harrowby Hall was that it was haunted, and, what was worse, the ghost did not content itself with merely appearing at the bedside of the afflicted person who saw it, but persisted in remaining there for one mortal hour before it would disappear.

It never appeared except on Christmas Eve, and then as the clock was striking twelve, in which respect alone was it lacking in that originality which in these days is a sine qua non of success in spectral life. The owners of Harrowby Hall had done their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy lady who rose up out of the best bedroom floor at midnight, but without avail. They had tried stopping the clock, so that the ghost would not know when it was midnight; but she made her appearance just the same, with that fearful miasmatic personality of hers, and there she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly saturated.

Then the owners of Harrowby Hall calked up every crack in the floor with the very best quality of hemp, and over this was placed layers of tar and canvas; the walls were made water-proof, and the doors and windows likewise, the proprietors having conceived the notion that the unexorcised lady would find it difficult to leak into the room after these precautions had been taken; but even this did not suffice. The following Christmas Eve she appeared as promptly as before, and frightened the occupant of the room quite out of his senses by sitting down alongside of him and gazing with her cavernous blue eyes into his; and he noticed, too, that in her long, aqueously bony fingers bits of dripping seaweed were entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends she drew across his forehead until he became like one insane. And then he swooned away, and was found unconscious in his bed the next morning by his host, simply saturated with seawater and fright, from the combined effects of which he never recovered, dying four years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration at the age of seventy-eight.

The next year the master of Harrowby Hall decided not to have the best spare bedroom opened at all, thinking that perhaps the ghost’s thirst for making herself disagreeable would be satisfied by haunting the furniture, but the plan was as unavailing as the many that had preceded it.

The ghost appeared as usual in the room—that is, it was supposed she did, for the hangings were dripping wet the next morning, and in the parlor below the haunted room a great damp spot appeared on the ceiling. Finding no one there, she immediately set out to learn the reason why, and she chose none other to haunt than the owner of the Harrowby himself. She found him in his own cozy room drinking whiskey—whiskey undiluted—and felicitating himself upon having foiled her ghostship, when all of a sudden the curl went out of his hair, his whiskey bottle filled and overflowed, and he was himself in a condition similar to that of a man who has fallen into a water-butt. When he recovered from the shock, which was a painful one, he saw before him the lady of the cavernous eyes and seaweed fingers. The sight was so unexpected and so terrifying that he fainted, but immediately came to, because of the vast amount of water in his hair, which, trickling down over his face, restored his consciousness.

Now it so happened that the master of Harrowby was a brave man, and while he was not particularly fond of interviewing ghosts, especially such quenching ghosts as the one before him, he was not to be daunted by an apparition. He had paid the lady the compliment of fainting from the effects of his first surprise, and now that he had come to he intended to find out a few things he felt he had a right to know. He would have liked to put on a dry suit of clothes first, but the apparition declined to leave him for an instant until her hour was up, and he was forced to deny himself that pleasure. Every time he would move she would follow him, with the result that everything she came in contact with got a ducking. In an effort to warm himself up he approached the fire, an unfortunate move as it turned out, because it brought the ghost directly over the fire, which immediately was extinguished. The whiskey became utterly valueless as a comforter to his chilled system, because it was by this time diluted to a proportion of ninety percent of water. The only thing he could do to ward off the evil effects of his encounter he did, and that was to swallow ten two-grain quinine pills, which he managed to put into his mouth before the ghost had time to interfere. Having done this, he turned with some asperity to the ghost, and said:

“Far be it from me to be impolite to a woman, madam, but I’m hanged if it wouldn’t please me better if you’d stop these infernal visits of yours to this house. Go sit out on the lake, if you like that sort of thing; soak the water-butt, if you wish; but do not, I implore you, come into a gentleman’s house and saturate him and his possessions in this way. It is damned disagreeable.”

“Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe,” said the ghost, in a gurgling voice, “you don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Madam,” returned the unhappy householder, “I wish that remark were strictly truthful. I was talking about you. It would be shillings and pence—nay, pounds, in my pocket, madam, if I did not know you.”

“That is a bit of specious nonsense,” returned the ghost, throwing a quart of indignation into the face of the master of Harrowby. “It may rank high as repartee, but as a comment upon my statement that you do not know what you are talking about, it savors of irrelevant impertinence. You do not know that I am compelled to haunt this place year after year by inexorable fate. It is no pleasure to me to enter this house, and ruin and mildew everything I touch. I never aspired to be a shower-bath, but it is my doom. Do you know who I am?”

“No, I don’t,” returned the master of Harrowby. “I should say you were the Lady of the Lake, or Little Sallie Waters.”

“You are a witty man for your years,” said the ghost.

“Well, my humor is drier than yours ever will be,” returned the master.

“No doubt. I’m never dry. I am the Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall, and dryness is a quality entirely beyond my wildest hope. I have been the incumbent of this highly unpleasant office for two hundred years tonight.”

“How the deuce did you ever come to get elected?” asked the master.

“Through a suicide,” replied the specter. “I am the ghost of that fair maiden whose picture hangs over the mantelpiece in the drawing-room. I should have been your great-great-great-great-great-aunt if I had lived, Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe, for I was the own sister of your great-great-great-great-grandfather.”

“But what induced you to get this house into such a predicament?”

“I was not to blame, sir,” returned the lady. “It was my father’s fault. He it was who built Harrowby Hall, and the haunted chamber was to have been mine. My father had it furnished in pink and yellow, knowing well that blue and gray formed the only combination of color I could tolerate. He did it merely to spite me, and, with what I deem a proper spirit, I declined to live in the room; whereupon my father said I could live there or on the lawn, he didn’t care which. That night I ran from the house and jumped over the cliff into the sea.”

“That was rash,” said the master of Harrowby.

“So I’ve heard,” returned the ghost. “If I had known what the consequences were to be I should not have jumped; but I really never realized what I was doing until after I was drowned. I had been drowned a week when a sea-nymph came to me and informed me that I was to be one of her followers forever afterwards, adding that it should be my doom to haunt Harrowby Hall for one hour every Christmas Eve throughout the rest of eternity. I was to haunt that room on such Christmas Eves as I found it inhabited; and if it should turn out not to be inhabited, I was and am to spend the allotted hour with the head of the house.”

“I’ll sell the place.”

“That you cannot do, for it is also required of me that I shall appear as the deeds are to be delivered to any purchaser, and divulge to him the awful secret of the house.”

“Do you mean to tell me that on every Christmas Eve that I don’t happen to have somebody in that guest-chamber, you are going to haunt me wherever I may be, ruining my whiskey, taking all the curl out of my hair, extinguishing my fire, and soaking me through to the skin?” demanded the master.

“You have stated the case, Oglethorpe. And what is more,” said the water ghost, “it doesn’t make the slightest difference where you are, if I find that room empty, wherever you may be I shall douse you with my spectral pres—”

Here the clock struck one, and immediately the apparition faded away. It was perhaps more of a trickle than a fade, but as a disappearance it was complete.

“By St. George and his Dragon!” ejaculated the master of Harrowby, wringing his hands. “It is guineas to hot-cross buns that next Christmas there’s an occupant of the spare room, or I spend the night in a bathtub.”

But the master of Harrowby would have lost his wager had there been anyone there to take him up, for when Christmas Eve came again he was in his grave, never having recovered from the cold contracted that awful night. Harrowby Hall was closed, and the heir to the estate was in London, where to him in his chambers came the same experience that his father had gone through, saving only that, being younger and stronger, he survived the shock. Everything in his rooms was ruined—his clocks were rusted in the works; a fine collection of watercolor drawings was entirely obliterated by the onslaught of the water ghost; and what was worse, the apartments below his were drenched with the water soaking through the floors, a damage for which he was compelled to pay, and which resulted in his being requested by his landlady to vacate the premises immediately.

The story of the visitation inflicted upon his family had gone abroad, and no one could be got to invite him out to any function save afternoon teas and receptions. Fathers of daughters declined to permit him to remain in their houses later than eight o’clock at night, not knowing but that some emergency might arise in the supernatural world which would require the unexpected appearance of the water ghost in this on nights other than Christmas Eve, and before the mystic hour when weary churchyards, ignoring the rules which are supposed to govern polite society, begin to yawn. Nor would the maids themselves have aught to do with him, fearing the destruction by the sudden incursion of aqueous femininity of the costumes which they held most dear.

So the heir of Harrowby Hall resolved, as his ancestors for several generations before him had resolved, that something must be done. His first thought was to make one of his servants occupy the haunted room at the crucial moment; but in this he failed, because the servants themselves knew the history of that room and rebelled. None of his friends would consent to sacrifice their personal comfort to his, nor was there to be found in all England a man so poor as to be willing to occupy the doomed chamber on Christmas Eve for pay.

Then the thought came to the heir to have the fireplace in the room enlarged, so that he might evaporate the ghost at its first appearance, and he was felicitating himself upon the ingenuity of his plan, when he remembered what his father had told him—how that no fire could withstand the lady’s extremely contagious dampness. And then he bethought him of steam-pipes. These, he remembered, could lie hundreds of feet deep in water, and still retain sufficient heat to drive the water away in vapor; and as a result of this thought the haunted room was heated by steam to a withering degree, and the heir for six months attended daily the Turkish baths, so that when Christmas Eve came he could himself withstand the awful temperature of the room.

The scheme was only partially successful. The water ghost appeared at the specified time, and found the heir of Harrowby prepared; but hot as the room was, it shortened her visit by no more than five minutes in the hour, during which time the nervous system of the young master was well-nigh shattered, and the room itself was cracked and warped to an extent which required the outlay of a large sum of money to remedy. And worse than this, as the last drop of the water ghost was slowly sizzling itself out on the floor, she whispered to her would-be conqueror that his scheme would avail him nothing, because there was still water in great plenty where she came from, and that next year would find her rehabilitated and as exasperatingly saturating as ever.

It was then that the natural action of the mind, in going from one extreme to the other, suggested to the ingenious heir of Harrowby the means by which the water ghost was ultimately conquered, and happiness once more came within the grasp of the house of Oglethorpe.

The heir provided himself with a warm suit of fur under-clothing. Donning this with the furry side in, he placed over it a rubber garment, tight-fitting, which he wore just as a woman wears a jersey. On top of this he placed another set of under-clothing, this suit made of wool, and over this was a second rubber garment like the first. Upon his head he placed a light and comfortable diving helmet, and so clad, on the following Christmas Eve he awaited the coming of his tormentor.

It was a bitterly cold night that brought to a close this twenty-fourth day of December. The air outside was still, but the temperature was below zero. Within all was quiet, the servants of Harrowby Hall awaiting with beating hearts the outcome of their master’s campaign against his supernatural visitor.

The master himself was lying on the bed in the haunted room, clad as has already been indicated, and then—

The clock clanged out the hour of twelve.

There was a sudden banging of doors, a blast of cold air swept through the halls, the door leading into the haunted chamber flew open, a splash was heard, and the water ghost was seen standing at the side of the heir of Harrowby, from whose outer dress there streamed rivulets of water, but whose own person deep down under the various garments he wore was as dry and as warm as he could have wished.

“Ha!” said the young master of Harrowby. “I’m glad to see you.”

“You are the most original man I’ve met, if that is true,” returned the ghost. “May I ask where did you get that hat?”

“Certainly, madam,” returned the master, courteously. “It is a little portable observatory I had made for just such emergencies as this. But, tell me, is it true that you are doomed to follow me about for one mortal hour—to stand where I stand, to sit where I sit?”

“That is my delectable fate,” returned the lady.

“We’ll go out on the lake,” said the master, starting up.

“You can’t get rid of me that way,” returned the ghost. “The water won’t swallow me up; in fact, it will just add to my present bulk.”

“Nevertheless,” said the master, firmly, “we will go out on the lake.”

“But, my dear sir,” returned the ghost, with a pale reluctance, “it is fearfully cold out there. You will be frozen hard before you’ve been out ten minutes.”

“Oh no, I’ll not,” replied the master. “I am very warmly dressed. Come!” This last in a tone of command that made the ghost ripple.

And they started.

They had not gone far before the water ghost showed signs of distress.

“You walk too slowly,” she said. “I am nearly frozen. My knees are so stiff now I can hardly move. I beseech you to accelerate your step.”

“I should like to oblige a lady,” returned the master, courteously, “but my clothes are rather heavy, and a hundred yards an hour is about my speed. Indeed, I think we would better sit down here on this snowdrift, and talk matters over.”

“Do not! Do not do so, I beg!” cried the ghost. “Let me move on. I feel myself growing rigid as it is. If we stop here, I shall be frozen stiff.”

“That, madam,” said the master slowly, and seating himself on an ice-cake—“that is why I have brought you here. We have been on this spot just ten minutes, we have fifty more. Take your time about it, madam, but freeze, that is all I ask of you.”

“I cannot move my right leg now,” cried the ghost, in despair, “and my overskirt is a solid sheet of ice. Oh, good, kind Mr. Oglethorpe, light a fire, and let me go free from these icy fetters.”

“Never, madam. It cannot be. I have you at last.”

“Alas!” cried the ghost, a tear trickling down her frozen cheek. “Help me, I beg. I congeal!”

“Congeal, madam, congeal!” returned Oglethorpe, coldly. “You have drenched me and mine for two hundred and three years, madam. Tonight you have had your last drench.”

“Ah, but I shall thaw out again, and then you’ll see. Instead of the comfortably tepid, genial ghost I have been in my past, sir, I shall be iced-water,” cried the lady, threateningly.

“No, you won’t, either,” returned Oglethorpe; “for when you are frozen quite stiff, I shall send you to a cold-storage warehouse, and there shall you remain an icy work of art forever more.”

“But warehouses burn.”

“So they do, but this warehouse cannot burn. It is made of asbestos and surrounding it are fireproof walls, and within those walls the temperature is now and shall forever be 416 degrees below the zero point; low enough to make an icicle of any flame in this world—or the next,” the master added, with an ill-suppressed chuckle.

“For the last time let me beseech you. I would go on my knees to you, Oglethorpe, were they not already frozen. I beg of you do not doo—”

Here even the words froze on the water ghost’s lips and the clock struck one. There was a momentary tremor throughout the icebound form, and the moon, coming out from behind a cloud, shone down on the rigid figure of a beautiful woman sculptured in clear, transparent ice. There stood the ghost of Harrowby Hall, conquered by the cold, a prisoner for all time.

The heir of Harrowby had won at last, and today in a large storage house in London stands the frigid form of one who will never again flood the house of Oglethorpe with woe and seawater.

As for the heir of Harrowby, his success in coping with a ghost has made him famous, a fame that still lingers about him, although his victory took place some twenty years ago; and so far from being unpopular with the fair sex, as he was when we first knew him, he has not only been married twice, but is to lead a third bride to the altar before the year is out.

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The Specter Cook
of Bangletop

I

For the purposes of this bit of history, Bangletop Hall stands upon a grassy knoll on the left bank of the River Dee, about eighteen miles from the quaint old city of Chester. It does not in reality stand there, nor has it ever done so, but consideration for the interests of the living compels me to conceal its exact location, and so to befog the public as to its whereabouts that its identity may never be revealed to its disadvantage. It is a rentable property, and were it known that it has had a mystery connected with it of so deep, dark, and eerie a nature as that about to be related, I fear that its usefulness, save as an accessory to romance, would be seriously impaired, and that as an investment it would become practically worthless.

The hall is a fair specimen of the architecture which prevailed at the time of Edward the Confessor; that is to say, the main portion of the structure, erected in Edward’s time by the first Baron Bangletop, has that square, substantial, stony aspect which to the eye versed in architecture identifies it at once as a product of that enlightened era. Later owners, the successive Barons Bangletop, have added to its original dimensions, putting Queen Anne wings here, Elizabethan ells there, and an Italian-Renaissance facade on the river front. A Wisconsin water tower, connected with the main building by a low Gothic alleyway, stands to the south; while toward the east is a Greek chapel, used by the present occupant as a storeroom for his wife’s trunks, she having lately returned from Paris with a wardrobe calculated to last through the first half of the coming London season. Altogether Bangletop Hall is an impressive structure, and at first sight gives rise to various emotions in the aesthetic breast; some cavil, others admire. One leading architect of Berlin traveled all the way from his German home to Bangletop Hall to show that famous structure to his son, a student in the profession which his father adorned; to whom he is said to have observed that, architecturally, Bangletop Hall was “cosmopolitan and omniperiodic, and therefore a liberal education to all who should come to study and master its details.” In short, Bangletop Hall was an object-lesson to young architects, and showed them at a glance that which they should ever strive to avoid.

Strange to say, for quite two centuries had Bangletop Hall remained without a tenant, and for nearly seventy-five years it had been in the market for rent, the barons, father and son, for many generations having found it impossible to dwell within its walls, and for a very good reason: no cook could ever be induced to live at Bangletop for a longer period than two weeks. Why the queens of the kitchen invariably took what is commonly known as French leave no occupant could ever learn, because, male or female, the departed domestics never returned to tell, and even had they done so, the pride of the Bangletops would not have permitted them to listen to the explanation. The Bangletop escutcheon was clear of blots, no suspicion even of a conversational blemish appearing thereon, and it was always a matter of extreme satisfaction to the family that no one of its scions since the title was created had ever been known to speak directly to anyone of lesser rank than himself, communication with inferiors being always had through the medium of a private secretary, himself a baron, or better, in reduced circumstances.

The first cook to leave Bangletop under circumstances of a Gallic nature—that is, without known cause, wages, or luggage—had been employed by Fitzherbert Alexander, seventeenth Baron of Bangletop, through Charles Mortimor de Herbert, Baron Peddlington, formerly of Peddlington Manor at Dunwoodie-on-the-Hike, his private secretary, a handsome old gentleman of sixty-five, who had been deprived of his estates by the crown in 1629 because he was suspected of having inspired a comic broadside published in those troublous days, and directed against Charles the First, which had set all London in a roar.

This broadside, one of very few which are not preserved in the British Museum—and a greater tribute to its rarity could not be devised—was called, “A Good Suggestion as to ye Proper Use of ye Chinne Whisker,” and consisted of a few lines of doggerel printed beneath a caricature of the king, with the crown hanging from his goatee, reading as follows:

“Ye King doth sporte a gallus grey goatee

Uponne ye chinne, where every one may see.

And since ye Monarch’s head’s too small to holde

With comfort to himselfe ye crowne of gold,

Why not enwax and hooke ye goatee rare,

And lette ye British crown hang down from there?”

Whether or no the Baron of Peddlington was guilty of this traitorous effusion no one, not even the king, could ever really make up his mind. The charge was never fully proven, nor was De Herbert ever able to refute it successfully, although he made frantic efforts to do so. The king, eminently just in such matters, gave the baron the benefit of the doubt, and inflicted only half the penalty prescribed, confiscating his estates, and letting him keep his head and liberty. De Herbert’s family begged the crown to reverse the sentence, permitting them to keep the estates, the king taking their uncle’s head in lieu thereof, he being unmarried and having no children who would mourn his loss. But Charles was poor rather than vindictive at this period, and preferring to adopt the other course, turned a deaf ear to the petitioners. This was probably one of the earliest factors in the decadence of literature as a pastime for men of high station.

De Herbert would have starved had it not been for his old friend Baron Bangletop, who offered him the post of private secretary, lately made vacant by the death of the Duke of Algeria, who had been the incumbent of that office for ten years, and in a short time the Baron of Peddlington was in full charge of the domestic arrangements of his friend. It was far from easy, the work that devolved upon him. He was a proud, haughty man, used to luxury of every sort, to whom contact with those who serve was truly distasteful; to whom the necessity of himself serving was most galling; but he had the manliness to face the hardships Fate had put upon him, particularly when he realized that Baron Bangletop’s attitude towards servants was such that he could with impunity impose on the latter seven indignities for every one that was imposed on him. Misery loves company, particularly when she is herself the hostess, and can give generously of her stores to others.

Desiring to retrieve his fallen fortunes, the Baron of Peddlington offered large salaries to those whom he employed to serve in the Bangletop menage, and on payday, through an ingenious system of fines, managed to retain almost seventy-five percent of the funds for his own use. Of this Baron Bangletop, of course, could know nothing. He was aware that under De Herbert the running expenses of his household were nearly twice what they had been under the dusky Duke of Algeria; but he also observed that repairs to the property, for which the late duke had annually paid out several thousands of pounds sterling, with very little to show for it, now cost him as many hundreds with no fewer tangible results. So he winked his eye—the only unaristocratic habit he had, by-the-way—and said nothing. The revenue was large enough, he had been known to say, to support himself and all his relatives in state, with enough left over to satisfy even Ali Baba and the forty thieves.

Had he foreseen the results of his complacency in financial matters, I doubt if he would have persisted therein.

For some ten years under De Herbert’s management everything went smoothly and expensively for the Bangletop Hall people, and then there came a change. The Baron Bangletop rang for his breakfast one morning, and his breakfast was not. The cook had disappeared. Whither or why she had gone, the private secretary professed to be unable to say. That she could easily be replaced, he was certain. Equally certain was it that Baron Bangletop stormed and raved for two hours, ate a cold breakfast—a thing he never had been known to do before—and then departed for London to dine at the club until Peddlington had secured a successor to the departed cook, which the private secretary succeeded in doing within three days. The baron was informed of his manager’s success, and at the end of a week returned to Bangletop Hall, arriving there late on a Saturday night, hungry as a bear, and not too amiable, the king having negotiated a forcible loan with him during his sojourn in the metropolis.

“Welcome to Bangletop, Baron,” said De Herbert, uneasily, as his employer alighted from his coach.

“Blast your welcome, and serve the dinner,” returned the baron, with a somewhat ill grace.

At this the private secretary seemed much embarrassed. “Ahem!” he said. “I’ll be very glad to have the dinner served, my dear Baron; but the fact is I—er—I have been unable to provide anything but canned lobster and apples.”

“What, in the name of Chaucer, does this mean?” roared Bangletop, who was a great admirer of the father of English poetry; chiefly because, as he was wont to say, Chaucer showed that a bad speller could be a great man, which was a condition of affairs exactly suited to his mind, since in the science of orthography he was weak, like most of the aristocrats of his day. “I thought you sent me word you had a cook?”

“Yes, Baron, I did; but the fact of the matter is, sir, she left us last night, or, rather, early this morning.”

“Another one of your beautiful Parisian exits, I presume?” sneered the baron, tapping the floor angrily with his toe.

“Well, yes, somewhat so; only she got her money first.”

“Money!” shrieked the baron. “Money! Why in Liverpool did she get her money? What did we owe her money for? Rent?”

“No, Baron; for services. She cooked three dinners.”

“Well, you’ll pay the bill out of your perquisites, that’s all. She’s done no cooking for me, and she gets no pay from me. Why do you think she left?”

“She said—”

“Never mind what she said, sir,” cried Bangletop, cutting De Herbert short. “When I am interested in the table-talk of cooks, I’ll let you know. What I wish to hear is what do you think was the cause of her leaving?”

“I have no opinion on the subject,” replied the private secretary, with becoming dignity. “I only know that at four o’clock this morning she knocked at my door, and demanded her wages for four days, and vowed she’d stay no longer in the house.”

“And why, pray, did you not inform me of the fact, instead of having me travel away down here from London?” queried Bangletop.

“You forget, Baron,” replied De Herbert, with a deprecatory gesture—“you forget that there is no system of telegraphy by which you could be reached. I may be poor, sir, but I’m just as much of a baron as you are, and I will take the liberty of saying right here, in what would be the shadow of your beard, if you had one, sir, that a man who insists on receiving cable messages when no such things exist is rather rushing business.”

“Pardon my haste, Peddlington, old chap,” returned the baron, softening. “You are quite right. My desire was unreasonable; but I swear to you, by all my ancestral Bangletops, that I am hungry as a pit full of bears, and if there’s one thing I can’t eat, it is lobster and apples. Can’t you scare up a snack of bread and cheese and a little cold larded fillet? If you’ll supply the fillet, I’ll provide the cold.”

At this sally the Baron of Peddlington laughed and the quarrel was over. But nonetheless the master of Bangletop went to bed hungry; nor could he do any better in the morning at breakfast-time. The butler had not been trained to cook, and the coachman’s art had once been tried on a boiled egg, which no one had been able to open, much less eat, and as it was the parlormaid’s Sunday off, there was absolutely no one in the house who could prepare a meal. The Baron of Bangletop had a sort of sneaking notion that if there were nobody around he could have managed the spit or gridiron himself; but, of course, in view of his position, he could not make the attempt. And so he once more returned to London, and vowed never to set his foot within the walls of Bangletop Hall again until his ancestral home was provided with a cook “copper-fastened and riveted to her position.”

And Bangletop Hall from that time was as a place deserted. The baron never returned, because he could not return without violating his oath; for De Herbert was not able to obtain a cook for the Bangletop cuisine who would stay, nor was anyone able to discover why. Cook after cook came, stayed a day, a week, and one or two held on for two weeks, but never longer. Their course was invariably the same—they would leave without notice; nor could any inducement be offered which would persuade them to remain. The Baron of Peddlington became, first round-shouldered, then deaf, and then insane in his search for a permanent cook, landing finally in an asylum, where he died, four years after the demise of his employer in London, of softening of the brain. His last words were, “Why did you leave your last place?”

And so time went on. Barons of Bangletop were born, educated, and died. Dynasties rose and fell, but Bangletop Hall remained uninhabited, although it was not until 1799 that the family gave up all hopes of being able to use their ancestral home. Tremendous alterations, as I have already hinted, were made. The drainage was carefully inspected, and a special apartment connected with the kitchen, finished in hardwood, handsomely decorated, and hung with rich tapestries, was provided for the cook, in the vain hope that she might be induced permanently to occupy her position. The Queen Anne wing and Elizabethan ell were constructed, the latter to provide bowling-alleys and smoking-rooms for the probable cousins of possible culinary queens, and many there were who accepted the office with alacrity, throwing it up with still greater alacrity before the usual fortnight passed. Then the Bangletops saw clearly that it was impossible for them to live there, and moving away, the house was announced to be “for rent, with all modern improvements, conveniently located, spacious grounds, especially adapted to the use of those who do their own cooking.” The last clause of the announcement puzzled a great many people, who went to see the mansion for no other reason than to ascertain just what the announcement meant, and the line, which was inserted in a pure spirit of facetious bravado, was probably the cause of the mansion’s quickly renting, as hardly a month had passed before it was leased for one year by a retired London brewer, whose wife’s curiosity had been so excited by the strange wording of the advertisement that she traveled out to Bangletop to gratify it, fell in love with the place, and insisted upon her husband’s taking it for a season. The luck of the brewer and his wife was no better than that of the Bangletops. Their cooks—and they had fourteen during their stay there—fled after an average service of four days apiece, and later the tenants themselves were forced to give up and return to London, where they told their friends that the “’all was ’aunted,” which might have filled the Bangletops with concern had they heard of it. They did not hear of it, however, for they and their friends did not know the brewer and the brewer’s friends, and as for complaining to the Bangletop agent in the matter, the worthy beer-maker thought he would better not do that, because he had hopes of being knighted someday, and he did not wish to antagonize so illustrious a family as the Bangletops by running down their famous hall—an antagonism which might materially affect the chances of himself and his good wife when they came to knock at the doors of London society. The lease was allowed to run its course, the rent was paid when due, and at the end of the stipulated term Bangletop Hall was once more on the lists as for rent.

II

For fourscore years and ten did the same hard fortune pursue the owners of Bangletop. Additions to the property were made immediately upon request of possible lessees. The Greek chapel was constructed in 1868 at the mere suggestion of a Hellenic prince, who came to England to write a history of the American rebellion, finding the information in back files of British newspapers exactly suited to the purposes of picturesque narrative, and no more misleading than most homemade history. Bangletop was retired, “far from the gadding crowd,” as the prince put it, and therefore just the place in which a historian of the romantic school might produce his magnum opus without disturbance; the only objection being that there was no place whither the eminently Christian sojourner could go to worship according to his faith, he being a communicant in the Greek Church. This defect Baron Bangletop immediately remedied by erecting and endowing the chapel; and his youngest son, having been found too delicate morally for the army, was appointed to the living and placed in charge of the chapel, having first embraced with considerable ardor the faith upon which the soul of the princely tenant was wont to feed. All of these improvements—chapel, priest, the latter’s change of faith, and all—the Bangletop agent put at the exceedingly low sum of forty-two guineas per annum and board for the priest; an offer which the prince at once accepted, stipulating, however, that the lease should be terminable at any time he or his landlord should see fit. Against this the agent fought nobly, but without avail. The prince had heard rumors about the cooks of Bangletop, and he was wary. Finally the stipulation was accepted by the baron, with what result the reader need hardly be told. The prince stayed two weeks, listened to one sermon in classic university Greek by the youthful Bangletop, was deserted by his cook, and moved away.

After the departure of the prince the estate was neglected for nearly twenty-two years, the owner having made up his mind that the case was hopeless. At the end of that period there came from the United States a wealthy shoemaker, Hankinson J. Terwilliger by name, chief owner of the Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company (Limited), of Soleton, Massachusetts, and to him was leased Bangletop Hall, with all its rights and appurtenances, for a term of five years. Mr. Terwilliger was the first applicant for the hall as a dwelling to whom the agent, at the instance of the baron, spoke in a spirit of absolute candor. The baron was well on in years, and he did not feel like getting into trouble with a Yankee, so he said, at his time of life. The hall had been a thorn in his flesh all his days, and he didn’t care if it was never occupied, and therefore he wished nothing concealed from a prospective tenant. It was the agent’s candor more than anything else that induced Mr. Terwilliger to close with him for the term of five years. He suspected that the Bangletops did not want him for a tenant, and from the moment that notion entered his head, he was resolved that he would be a tenant.

“I’m as good a man as any baron that ever lived,” he said; “and if it pleases Hankinson J. Terwilliger to live in a baronial hall, a baronial hall is where Hankinson J. Terwilliger puts up.”

“We certainly have none of the feeling which your words seem to attribute to us, my dear sir,” the agent had answered. “Baron Bangletop would feel highly honored to have so distinguished a sojourner in England as yourself occupy his estate, but he does not wish you to take it without fully understanding the circumstances. Desirable as Bangletop Hall is, it seems fated to be unoccupied because it is thought to be haunted, or something of that sort, the effect of which is to drive away cooks, and without cooks life is hardly an ideal.”

Mr. Terwilliger laughed. “Ghosts and me are not afraid of each other,” he said. “‘Let ’em haunt,’ I say; and as for cooks, Mrs. H.J.T. hasn’t had a liberal education for nothing. We could live if all the cooks in creation were to go off in a whiff. We have daughters too, we have. Good smart American girls, who can adorn a palace or grace a hut on demand, not afraid of poverty, and able to take care of good round dollars. They can play the piano all the morning and cook dinner all the afternoon if they’re called on to do it; so your difficulties ain’t my difficulties. I’ll take the hall at your figures; term, five years; and if the baron’ll come down and spend a month with us at any time, I don’t care when, we’ll show him what a big lap Luxury can get up when she tries.”

And so it happened the New York papers announced that Hankinson J. Terwilliger, Mrs. Terwilliger, the Misses Terwilliger, and Master Hankinson J. Terwilliger, Jun., of Soleton, Massachusetts, had plunged into the dizzy whirl of English society, and that the sole of the three-dollar shoe now trod the baronial halls of the Bangletops. Later it was announced that the Misses Terwilliger, of Bangletop Hall, had been presented to the queen; that the Terwilligers had entertained the Prince of Wales at Bangletop; in fact, the Terwilligers became an important factor in the letters of all foreign correspondents of American papers, for the president of the Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), was now in full possession of the historic mansion, and was living up to his surroundings.

For a time everything was plain sailing for the Americans at Bangletop. The dire forebodings of the agent did not seem to be fulfilled, and Mr. Terwilliger was beginning to feel aggrieved. He had hired a house with a ghost, and he wanted the use of it; but when he reflected upon the consequences below stairs, he held his peace. He was not so sure, after he had stayed at Bangletop awhile, and had had his daughters presented to the queen, that he could be so independent of cooks as he had at first supposed. Several times he had hinted rather broadly that some of the old New England homemade flapjacks would be most pleasing to his palate; but since the prince had spent an afternoon on the lawn of Bangletop, the young ladies seemed deeply pained at the mere mention of their accomplishments in the line of griddles and batter; nor could Mrs. Terwilliger, after having tasted the joys of aristocratic life, bring herself to don the apron which so became her portly person in the early American days, and prepare for her lord and master one of those delicious platters of poached eggs and breakfast bacon, the mere memory of which made his mouth water. In short, palatial surroundings had too obviously destroyed in his wife and daughters all that capacity for happiness in a hovel of which Mr. Terwilliger had been so proud, and concerning which he had so eloquently spoken to Baron Bangletop’s agent, and he now found himself in the position of Damocles. The hall was leased for a term, entertainment had been provided for the county with lavish hand; but success was dependent entirely upon his ability to keep a cook, his family having departed from their republican principles, and the history of the house was dead against a successful issue. So he decided that, after all, it was better that the ghost should be allowed to remain quiescent, and he uttered no word of complaint.

It was just as well, too, that Mr. Terwilliger held his peace, and refrained from addressing a complaining missive to the agent of Bangletop Hall; for before a message of that nature could have reached the person addressed, its contents would have been misleading, for at a quarter after midnight on the morning of the date set for the first of a series of grand banquets to the county folk, there came from the kitchen of Bangletop Hall a quick succession of shrieks that sent the three Misses Terwilliger into hysterics, and caused Hankinson J. Terwilliger’s sole remaining lock to stand erect. Mrs. Terwilliger did not hear the shrieks, owing to a lately acquired habit of hearing nothing that proceeded from below stairs.

The first impulse of Terwilliger père was to dive down under the bedclothes, and endeavor to drown the fearful sound by his own labored breathing, but he never yielded to first impulses. So he awaited the second, which came simultaneously with a second series of shrieks and a cry for help in the unmistakable voice of the cook; a lady, by-the-way, who had followed the Terwilliger fortunes ever since the Terwilligers began to have fortunes, and whose first capacity in the family had been the dual one of mistress of the kitchen and confidante of madame. The second impulse was to arise in his might, put on a stout pair of the Terwilliger three-dollar brogans—the strongest shoe made, having been especially devised for the British Infantry in the Soudan—and garments suitable to the occasion, namely, a mackintosh and pair of broadcloth trousers, and go to the rescue of the distressed domestic. This Hankinson J. Terwilliger at once proceeded to do, arming himself with a pair of horse-pistols, murmuring on the way below a soft prayer, the only one he knew, and which, with singular inappropriateness on this occasion, began with the words, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

“What’s the matter, Judson?” queried Mrs. Terwilliger, drowsily, as she opened her eyes and saw her husband preparing for the fray.

She no longer called him Hankinson, not because she did not think it a good name, nor was it less euphonious to her ear than Judson, but Judson was Mr. Terwilliger’s middle name, and middle names were quite the thing, she had observed, in the best circles. It was doubtless due to this discovery that her visiting cards had been engraved to read “Mrs. H. Judson-Terwilliger,” the hyphen presumably being a typographical error, for which the engraver was responsible.

“Matter enough,” growled Hankinson. “I have reason to believe that that jackass of a ghost is on duty tonight.”

At the word ghost a pseudo-aristocratic shriek pervaded the atmosphere, and Mrs. Terwilliger, forgetting her social position for a moment, groaned “Oh, Hank!” and swooned away. And then the president of the Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), descended to the kitchen.

Across the sill of the kitchen door lay the culinary treasure whose lobster croquettes the Prince of Wales had likened unto a dream of Lucullus. Within the kitchen were signs of disorder. Chairs were upset; the table was lying flat on its back, with its four legs held rigidly up in the air; the kitchen library, consisting of a copy of Marie Antoinette’s Dream-Book; a yellow-covered novel bearing the title Little Lucy; or, The Kitchen-maid who Became a Marchioness; and Sixty Soups, by One who Knows, lay strewn about the room, the Dream-Book sadly torn, and Little Lucy disfigured forever with batter. Even to the unpracticed eye it was evident that something had happened, and Mr. Terwilliger felt a cold chill mounting his spine three sections at a time. Whether it was the chill or his concern for the prostrate cook that was responsible or not I cannot say, but for some cause or other Mr. Terwilliger immediately got down on his knees, in which position he gazed fearfully about him for a few minutes, and then timidly remarked, “Cook!”

There was no answer.

“Mary, I say. Cook,” he whispered, “what the deuce is the meaning of all this?”

A low moan was all that came from the cook, nor would Hankinson have listened to more had there been more to hear, for simultaneously with the moan he became uncomfortably conscious of a presence. In trying to describe it afterwards, Hankinson said that at first he thought a cold draft from a dank cavern filled with a million eels, and a rattlesnake or two thrown in for luck, was blowing over him, and he avowed that it was anything but pleasant; and then it seemed to change into a mist drawn largely from a stagnant pool in a malarial country, floating through which were great quantities of finely chopped seaweed, wet hair, and an indescribable atmosphere of something the chief quality of which was a sort of stale clamminess that was awful in its intensity.

“I’m glad,” Mr. Terwilliger murmured to himself, “that I ain’t one of those delicately reared nobles. If I had anything less than a right-down regular republican constitution I’d die of fright.”

And then his natural grit came to his rescue, and it was well it did, for the presence had assumed shape, and now sat on the window-ledge in the form of a hag, glaring at him from out of the depths of her unfathomable eyes, in which, despite their deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of red caused by small specks of that hue semioccasionally seen floating across her dilated pupils.

“You are the Bangletop ghost, I presume?” said Terwilliger, rising and standing near the fire to thaw out his system.

The specter made no reply, but pointed to the door.

“Yes,” Terwilliger said, as if answering a question. “That’s the way out, madame. It’s a beautiful exit, too. Just try it.”

“H’I knows the wy out,” returned the specter, rising and approaching the tenant of Bangletop, whose solitary lock also rose, being too polite to remain seated while the ghost walked. “H’I also knows the wy in, ’Ankinson Judson Terwilliger.”

“That’s very evident, madame, and between you and me I wish you didn’t,” returned Hankinson, somewhat relieved to hear the ghost talk, even if her voice did sound like the roar of a conch-shell with a bad case of grip. “I may say to you that, aside from a certain uncanny satisfaction which I feel at being permitted for the first time in my life to gaze upon the lineaments of a real live misty musty spook, I regard your coming here as an invasion of the sacred rights of privacy which is, as you might say, ’hinexcusable.’”

“Hinvaision?” retorted the ghost, snapping her fingers in his face with such effect that his chin dropped until Terwilliger began to fear it might never resume its normal position. “Hinvaision? H’I’d like to know ’oo’s the hinvaider. H’I’ve occupied these ’ere ’alls for hover two ’undred years.”

“Then it’s time you moved, unless perchance you are the ghost of a medieval porker,” Hankinson said, his calmness returning now that he had succeeded in plastering his iron-gray lock across the top of his otherwise bald head. “Of course, if you are a spook of that kind, you want the earth, and maybe you’ll get it.”

“H’I’m no porker,” returned the specter. “H’I’m simply the shide of a poor abused cook which is hafter revenge.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Terwilliger, raising his eyebrows, “this is getting interesting. You’re a spook with a grievance, eh? Against me? I’ve never wronged a ghost that I know of.”

“No, h’I’ve no ’ard feelinks against you, sir,” answered the ghost. “Hin fact h’I don’t know nothink about you. My trouble’s with them Baingletops, and h’I’m a-pursuin’ of ’em. H’I’ve cut ’em out of two ’undred years of rent ’ere. They might better ’ave pide me me waiges hin full.”

“Oho!” cried Terwilliger; “it’s a question of wages, is it? The Bangletops were hard up?”

“’Ard up? The Baingletops?” laughed the ghost. “When they gets ’ard up the Baink o’ Hengland will be in all the sixty soups mentioned in that there book.”

“You seem to be up in the vernacular,” returned Terwilliger, with a smile. “I’ll bet you are an old fraud of a modern ghost.”

Here he discharged all six chambers of his pistol into the body of the specter.

“No taikers,” retorted the ghost, as the bullets whistled through her chest, and struck deep into the wall on the other side of the kitchen. “That’s a noisy gun you’ve got, but you carn’t ly a ghost with cold lead hany more than you can ly a cornerstone with a chicken. H’I’m ’ere to sty until I gets me waiges.”

“What was the amount of your wages due at the time of your discharge?” asked Hankinson.

“H’I was gettin’ ten pounds a month,” returned the specter.

“Geewhittaker!” cried Terwilliger, “you must have been an all-fired fine cook.”

“H’I was,” assented the ghost, with a proud smile. “H’I cooked a boar’s ’ead for ’is Royal ’Ighness King Charles when ’e visited Baingletop ’All as which was the finest ’e hever taisted, so ’e said, hand ’e’d ’ave knighted me hon the spot honly me sex wasn’t suited to the title. ‘You carn’t make a knight out of a woman,’ says the king, ‘but give ’er my compliments, and tell ’er ’er monarch says as ’ow she’s a cook as is too good for ’er staition.’”

“That was very nice,” said Terwilliger. “No one could have desired a higher recommendation than that.”

“My words hexackly when the baron’s privit secretary told me two dys laiter as ’ow the baron’s heggs wasn’t done proper,” said the ghost. “H’I says to ’im, says I: ‘The baron’s heggs be blowed. My monarch’s hopinion is worth two of any ten barons’s livin’, and Mister Baingletop,’ (h’I allus called ’im mister when ’e was ugly,) ‘can get ’is heggs cooked helsewhere if ’e don’t like the wy h’I boils ’em.’ Hand what do you suppose the secretary said then?”

“I give it up,” replied Terwilliger. “What?”

“’E said as ’ow h’I ’ad the big ’ead.”

“How disgusting of him!” murmured Terwilliger. “That was simply low.”

“Hand then ’e accuged me of bein’ himpudent.”

“No!”

“’E did, hindeed; hand then ’e discharged me without me waiges. Hof course h’I wouldn’t sty after that; but h’I says to ’im, ‘Hif I don’t get me py, h’I’ll ’aunt this place from the dy of me death;’ hand ’e says, ‘’Aunt awy.’”

“And you have kept your word.”

“H’I ’ave that! H’I’ve made it ’ot for ’em, too.”

“Well, now, look here,” said Terwilliger, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay you your wages if you’ll go back to Spookland and mind your own business. Ten pounds isn’t much when three-dollar shoes cost fifteen cents a pair and sell like hot waffles. Is it a bargain?”

“H’I was sent off with three months’ money owin’ me,” said the ghost.

“Well, call it thirty pounds, then,” replied Terwilliger.

“With hinterest—compound hinterest at six percent—for two ’undred and thirty years,” said the ghost.

“Phew!” whistled Terwilliger. “Have you any idea how much money that is?”

“Certingly,” replied the ghost. “Hit’s just 63,609,609 pounds 6 shillings 4-1/2 pence. When h’I gets that, h’I flies; huntil I gets it h’I stys ’ere an’ I ’aunts.”

“Say,” said Terwilliger, “haven’t you been chumming with an Italian ghost named Shylock over on the other shore?”

“Shylock!” said the ghost. “No, h’I’ve never ’eard the naime. Perhaps ’e’s stoppin’ at the hother place.”

“Very likely,” said Terwilliger. “He is an eminent saint alongside of you. But I say now, Mrs. Spook, or whatever your name is, this is rubbing it in, to try to collect as much money as that, particularly from me, who wasn’t to blame in any way, and on whom you haven’t the spook of a claim.”

“H’I’m very sorry for you, Mr. Terwilliger,” said the ghost. “But my vow must be kept sacrid.”

“But why don’t you come down on the Bangletops up in London, and squeeze it out of them?”

“H’I carn’t. H’I’m bound to ’aunt this ’all, an’ that’s hall there is about it. H’I carn’t find a better wy to ly them Baingletops low than by attachin’ of their hincome, hand the rent of this ’all is the honly bit of hincome within my reach.”

“But I’ve leased the place for five years,” said Terwilliger, in despair; “and I’ve paid the rent in advance.”

“Carn’t ’elp it,” returned the ghost. “Hif you did that, hit’s your own fault.”

“I wouldn’t have done it, except to advertise my shoe business,” said Terwilliger, ruefully. “The items in the papers at home that arise from my occupancy of this house, together with the social cinch it gives me, are worth the money; but I’m hanged if it’s worth my while to pay back salaries to every grasping apparition that chooses to rise up out of the moat and dip his or her clammy hand into my surplus. The shoe trade is a blooming big thing, but the profits aren’t big enough to divide with tramp ghosts.”

“Your tone is very ’aughty, ’Ankinson J. Terwilliger, but it don’t haffeck me. H’I don’t care ’oo pys the money, an’ h’I ’aven’t got you into this scripe. You’ve done that yourself. Hon the other ’and, sir, h’I’ve showed you ’ow to get out of it.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” returned Hankinson. “I can’t say I blame you for not perjuring yourself, particularly since you’ve been dead long enough to have discovered what the probable consequences would be. But I do wish there was some other way out of it. I couldn’t pay you all that money without losing a controlling interest in the shoe company, and that’s hardly worth my while, now is it?”

“No, Mr. Terwilliger; hit is not.”

“I have a scheme,” said Hankinson, after a moment or two of deep thought. “Why don’t you go back to the spirit world and expose the Bangletops there? They have spooks, haven’t they?”

“Yes,” replied the ghost, sadly. “But the spirit world his as bad as this ’ere. The spook of a cook carn’t reach the spook of a baron there hany more than a scullery-maid can reach a markis ’ere. H’I tried that when the baron died and came over to the hother world, but ’e ’ad ’is spook flunkies on ’and to tell me ’e was hout drivin’ with the ghost of William the Conqueror and the shide of Solomon. H’I knew ’e wasn’t, but what could h’I do?”

“It was a mean game of bluff,” said Terwilliger. “I suppose, though, if you were the shade of a duchess, you could simply knock Bangletop silly?”

“Yes, and the Baron of Peddlington too. ’E was the private secretary as said h’I ’ad the big ’ead.”

“H’m!” said Terwilliger, meditatively. “Would you—er—would you consent to retire from this haunting business of yours, and give me a receipt for that bill for wages, interest and all, if I had you made over into the spook of a duchess? Revenge is sweet, you know, and there are some revenges that are simply a thousand times more balmy than riches.”

“Would h’I?” ejaculated the ghost, rising and looking at the clock. “Would h’I?” she repeated. “Well, rather. If h’I could enter spook society as a duchess, you can wager a year’s hincome them Bangletops wouldn’t be hin it.”

“Good! I am glad to see that you are a spook of spirit. If you had veins, I believe there’d be sporting blood in them.”

“Thainks,” said the ghost, dryly. “But ’ow can it hever be did?”

“Leave that to me,” Terwilliger answered. “We’ll call a truce for two weeks, at the end of which time you must come back here, and we’ll settle on the final arrangements. Keep your own counsel in the matter, and don’t breathe a word about your intentions to anybody. Above all, keep sober.”

“H’I’m no cannibal,” retorted the ghost.

“Who said you were?” asked Terwilliger.

“You intimated as much,” said the ghost, with a smile. “You said as ’ow I must keep sober, and ’ow could I do hotherwise hunless I swallered some spirits?”

Terwilliger laughed. He thought it was a pretty good joke for a ghost—especially a cook’s ghost—and then, having agreed on the hour of midnight one fortnight thence for the next meeting, they shook hands and parted.

“What was it, Hankinson?” asked Mrs. Terwilliger, as her husband crawled back into bed. “Burglars?”

“Not a burglar,” returned Hankinson. “Nothing but a ghost—a poor, old, female ghost.”

“Ghost!” cried Mrs. Terwilliger, trembling with fright. “In this house?”

“Yes, my dear. Haunted us by mistake, that’s all. Belongs to another place entirely; got a little befogged, and came here without intending to, that’s all. When she found out her mistake, she apologized, and left.”

“What did she have on?” asked Mrs. Terwilliger, with a sigh of relief.

But the president of the Three-dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), said nothing. He had dropped off into a profound slumber.

III

For the next two weeks Terwilliger lived in a state of preoccupation that worried his wife and daughters to a very considerable extent. They were afraid that something had happened, or was about to happen, in connection with the shoe corporation; and this deprived them of sleep, particularly the elder Miss Terwilliger, who had danced four times at a recent ball with an impecunious young earl, whom she suspected of having intentions. Ariadne was in a state of grave apprehension, because she knew that much as the earl might love her, it would be difficult for them to marry on his income, which was literally too small to keep the roof over his head in decent repair.

But it was not business troubles that occupied every sleeping and waking thought of Hankinson Judson Terwilliger. His mind was now set upon the hardest problem it had ever had to cope with, that problem being how to so ennoble the specter cook of Bangletop that she might outrank the ancestors of his landlord in the other world—the shady world, he called it. The living cook had been induced to remain partly by threats and partly by promises of increased pay; the threats consisting largely of expressions of determination to leave her in England, thousands of miles from her home in Massachusetts, deserted and forlorn, the poor woman being insufficiently provided with funds to get back to America, and holding in her veins a strain of Celtic blood quite large enough to make the idea of remaining an outcast in England absolutely intolerable to her. At the end of seven days Terwilliger was seemingly as far from the solution of his problem as ever, and at the grand fete given by himself and wife on the afternoon of the seventh day of his trial, to the Earl of Mugley, the one in whom Ariadne was interested, he seemed almost rude to his guests, which the latter overlooked, taking it for the American way of entertaining. It is very hard for a shoemaker to entertain earls, dukes, and the plainest kind of everyday lords under ordinary circumstances; but when, in addition to the duties of host, the maker of soles has to think out a recipe for the making of an aristocrat out of a deceased plebe, a polite drawing-room manner is hardly to be expected. Mr. Terwilliger’s manner remained of the kind to be expected under the circumstances, neither better nor worse, until the flunky at the door announced, in stentorian tones, “The Hearl of Mugley.”

The “H’earl” of Mugley seemed to be the open sesame to the door betwixt Terwilliger and success. Simultaneously with the entrance of the earl the solution of his problem flashed across the mind of the master of Bangletop, and his affronting demeanor, his preoccupation and all disappeared in an instant. Indeed, so elegantly enthusiastic was his reception of the earl that Lady Maud Sniffles, on the other side of the room, whispered in the ear of the Hon. Miss Pottleton that Mugley’s creditors were in luck; to which the Hon. Miss Pottleton, whose smiles upon the nobleman had been returned unopened, curved her upper lip spitefully, and replied that they were indeed, but she didn’t envy Ariadne that pompous little error of nature’s, the earl.

“Howdy do, Earl?” said Terwilliger. “Glad to see you looking so well. How’s your mamma?”

“The countess is in her usual state of health, Mr. Terwilliger,” returned the earl.

“Ain’t she coming this afternoon?”

“I really can’t say,” answered Mugley. “I asked her if she was coming, and all she did was to call for her salts. She’s a little given to fainting spells, and the slightest shock rather upsets her.”

And then the earl turned on his heel and sought out the fair Ariadne, while Terwilliger, excusing himself, left the assemblage, and went directly to his private office in the crypt of the Greek chapel. Arrived there, he seated himself at his desk and wrote the following formal card, which he put in an envelope and addressed to the Earl of Mugley:

“If the Earl of Mugley will call at the private office of Mr. H. Judson Terwilliger at once, he will not only greatly oblige Mr. H. Judson Terwilliger, but may also hear of something to his advantage.”

The card written, Terwilliger summoned an attendant, ordered a quantity of liqueurs, whiskey, sherry, port, and lemon squash for two to be brought to the office, and then sent his communication to the earl.

Now the earl was a great stickler for etiquette, and he did not at all like the idea of one in his position waiting upon one of Mr. Terwilliger’s rank, or lack of rank, and, at first thought, he was inclined to ignore the request of his host, but a combination of circumstances served to change his resolution. He so seldom heard anything to his advantage that, for mere novelty’s sake, he thought he would do as he was asked; but the question of his dignity rose up again, and shoving the note into his pocket he tried to forget it. After five minutes he found he could not forget it, and putting his hand into the pocket for the missive, meaning to give it a second reading, he drew out another paper by mistake, which was, in brief, a reminder from a firm of London lawyers that he owed certain clients of theirs a few thousands of pounds for the clothing that had adorned his back for the last two years, and stating that proceedings would be begun if at the expiration of three months the account was not paid in full. The reminder settled it. The Earl of Mugley graciously concluded to grant Mr. H. Judson Terwilliger an audience in the private office under the Greek chapel.

“Sit down, Earl, and have a cream de mint with me,” said Terwilliger, as the earl, four minutes later, entered the apartment.

“Thanks,” returned the earl. “Beautiful color that,” he added, pleasantly, smacking his lips with satisfaction as the soft green fluid disappeared from the glass into his inner earl.

“Fine,” said Terwilliger. “Little unripe, perhaps, but pleasant to the eye. I prefer the hue of the Maraschino, myself. Just taste that Maraschino, Earl. It’s A1; thirty-six dollars a case.”

“You wanted to see me about some matter of interest to both of us, I believe, Mr. Terwilliger,” said the earl, declining the proffered Maraschino.

“Well, yes,” returned Terwilliger. “More of interest to you, perhaps, than to me. The fact is, Earl, I’ve taken quite a shine to you, so much of a one in fact, that I’ve looked you up at a commercial agency, and H. J. Terwilliger never does that unless he’s mightily interested in a man.”

“I—er—I hope you are not to be prejudiced against me,” the earl said, uneasily, “by—er—by what those cads of tradesmen say about me.”

“Not a bit,” returned Terwilliger—“not a bit. In fact, what I’ve discovered has prejudiced me in your favor. You are just the man I’ve been looking for for some days. I’ve wanted a man with three A blood and three Z finances for ’most a week now, and from what I gather from Burke and Bradstreet, you fill the bill. You owe pretty much everybody from your tailor to the collector of pew rents at your church, eh?”

“I’ve been unfortunate in financial matters,” returned the earl; “but I have left the family name untarnished.”

“So I believe, Earl. That’s what I admire about you. Some men with your debts would be driven to drink or other pastimes of a more or less tarnishing nature, and I admire you for the admirable restraint you have put upon yourself. You owe, I am told, about twenty-seven thousand pounds.”

“My secretary has the figures, I believe,” said the earl, slightly bored.

“Well, we’ll say thirty thousand in round figures. Now what hope have you of ever paying that sum off?”

“None—unless I—er—well, unless I should be fortunate enough to secure a rich wife.”

“Precisely; that is exactly what I thought,” rejoined Terwilliger. “Marriage is your only asset, and as yet that is hardly negotiable. Now I have called you here this afternoon to make a proposition to you. If you will marry according to my wishes I will give you an income of five thousand pounds a year for the next five years.”

“I don’t quite understand you,” the earl replied, in a disappointed tone. It was evident that five thousand pounds per annum was too small a figure for his tastes.

“I think I was quite plain,” said Terwilliger, and he repeated his offer.

“I certainly admire the lady very much,” said the earl; “but the settlement of income seems very small.”

Terwilliger opened his eyes wide with astonishment. “Oh, you admire the lady, eh?” he said. “Well, there is no accounting for tastes.”

“You surprise me slightly,” said the earl, in response to this remark. “The lady is certainly worthy of any man’s admiration. She is refined, cultivated, beautiful, and—”

“Ahem!” said Terwilliger. “May I ask, my dear Earl, to whom you refer?”

“To Ariadne, of course. I thought your course somewhat unusual, but we do not pretend to comprehend you Americans over here. Your proposition is that I shall marry Ariadne?”

I hesitate to place on record what Terwilliger said in answer to this statement. It was forcible rather than polite, and the earl from that moment adopted a new simile for degrees of profanity, substituting “to swear like an American” for the old forms having to do with pirates and troopers. The string of expletives was about five minutes in length, at the end of which time Terwilliger managed to say:

“No such damned proposition ever entered my mind. I want you to marry a cold, misty, musty specter, nothing more or less, and I’ll tell you why.”

And then he proceeded to tell the Earl of Mugley all that he knew of the history of Bangletop Hall, concluding with a narration of his experiences with the ghost cook.

“My rent here,” he said, in conclusion, “is five thousand pounds per annum. The advertising I get out of the fact of my being here and swelling it with you nabobs is worth twenty-five thousand pounds a year, and I’m willing to pay, in good hard cash, twenty percent of that amount rather than be forced to give up. Now here’s your chance to get an income without an encumbrance and stave off your creditors. Marry the spook, so that she can go back to the spirit land a countess and make it hot for the Bangletops, and don’t be so allfired proud. She’ll be disappointed enough I can tell you, when I inform her that an earl was the best I could do, the promised duke not being within reach. If she says earls are drugs in the market, I won’t be able to deny it; and, after all, my lad, a good cook is a greater blessing in this world than any earl that ever lived, and a blamed sight rarer.”

“Your proposition is absolutely ridiculous, Mr. Terwilliger,” replied the earl. “I’d look well marrying a draft from a dark cavern, as you call it, now wouldn’t I? To say nothing of the impossibility of a Mugley marrying a cook. I cannot entertain the proposition.”

“You’ll find you can’t entertain anything if you don’t watch out,” fumed Terwilliger, in return.

“I’m not so sure about that,” replied the earl, haughtily, sipping his lemon squash. “I fancy Miss Ariadne is not entirely indifferent to me.”

“Well, you might just as well understand on this 18th day of July, 18—, as any other time, that my daughter Ariadne never becomes the Earless of Mugley,” said Terwilliger, in a tone of exasperation.

“Not even when her father considers the commercial value of such an alliance for his daughter?” retorted the earl, shaking his finger in Terwilliger’s face. “Not even when the President of the Three-dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), considers the advertising sure to result from a marriage between his house and that of Mugley, with presents from her majesty the queen, the Duke of York acting as best man, and telegrams of congratulation from the crowned heads of Europe pouring in at the rate of two an hour for half as many hours as there are thrones?”

Terwilliger turned pale.

The picture painted by the earl was terribly alluring.

He hesitated.

He was lost.

“Mugley,” he whispered, hoarsely—“Mugley, I have wronged you. I thought you were a fortune-hunter. I see you love her. Take her, my boy, and pass me the brandy.”

“Certainly, Mr. Terwilliger,” replied the earl, affably. “And then, if you’ve no objection, you may pass it back, and I’ll join you in a thimbleful myself.”

And then the two men drank each other’s health in silence, which was prolonged for at least five minutes, during which time the earl and his host both appeared to be immersed in deep thought.

“Come,” said Terwilliger at last. “Let us go back to the drawing-room, or they’ll miss us, and, by-the-way, you might speak of that little matter to Ariadne tonight. It’ll help the fall trade to have the engagement announced.”

“I will, Mr. Terwilliger,” returned the earl, as they started to leave the room; “but I say, father-in-law elect,” he whispered, catching Terwilliger’s coat sleeve and drawing him back into the office for an instant, “you couldn’t let me have five pounds on account this evening, could you?”

•    •    •

Two minutes later Terwilliger and the earl appeared in the drawing-room, the former looking haggard and worn, his eyes feverishly bright, and his manner betraying the presence of disturbing elements in his nerve centers; the latter smiling more affably than was consistent with his title, and jingling a number of gold coins in his pocket, which his intimate friend and old college chum, Lord Dufferton, on the other side of the room, marveled at greatly, for he knew well that upon the earl’s arrival at Bangletop Hall an hour before his pockets were as empty as a flunky’s head.

IV

Terwilliger’s time was almost up. The hour for his interview with the specter cook of Bangletop was hardly forty-eight hours distant, and he was well-nigh distracted. No solution of the problem seemed possible since the earl had so peremptorily declined to fall in with his plan. He was glad the earl had done so, for otherwise he would have been denied the tremendous satisfaction which the consummation of an alliance between his own and one of the oldest and noblest houses of England was about to give him, not to mention the commercial phase of the situation, which had been so potent a factor in bringing the engagement about; for Ariadne had said yes to the earl that same night, and the betrothal was shortly to be announced. It would have been announced at once, only the earl felt that he should break the news himself first to his mother, the countess—an operation which he dreaded, and for which he believed some eight or ten weeks of time were necessary.

“What is the matter, Judson?” Mrs. Terwilliger asked finally, her husband was growing so careworn of aspect.

“Nothing, my dear, nothing.”

“But there is something, Judson, and as your wife I demand to know what it is. Perhaps I can help you.”

And then Mr. Terwilliger broke down, and told the whole story to Mrs. Terwilliger, omitting no detail, stopping only to bring that worthy lady to on the half-dozen or more occasions when her emotions were too strong for her nerves, causing her to swoon. When he had quite done, she looked him reproachfully in the eye, and said that if he had told her the truth instead of deceiving her on the night of the spectral visitation, he might have been spared all his trouble.

“For you know, Judson,” she said, “I have made a study of the art of acquiring titles. Since I read the story of the girl who started in life as an innkeeper’s daughter and died a duchess, by Elizabeth Harley Hicks, of Salem, and realized how one might be lowly born and yet rise to lofty heights, it has been my dearest wish that my girls might become noblewomen, and at times, Judson, I have even hoped that you might yet become a duke.”

“Great Scott!” ejaculated Terwilliger. “That would be awful. Hankinson, Duke of Terwilliger! Why, Molly, I’d never be able to hold up my head in shoe circles with a name on me like that.”

“Is there nothing in the world but shoes, Judson?” asked his wife, seriously.

“You’ll find shoes are the foundation upon which society stands,” chuckled Terwilliger in return.

“You are never serious,” returned Mrs. Terwilliger; “but now you must be. You are coping with the supernatural. Now I have discovered,” continued the lady, “that there are three methods by which titles are acquired—birth, marriage, and purchase.”

“You forget the fourth—achievement,” suggested Terwilliger.

“Not these days, Judson. It used to be so, but it is not so now. Now the specter hasn’t birth, we can’t get any living duke to marry her, dead dukes are hard to find, so there’s nothing to do but to buy her a title.”

“But where?”

“In Italy. You can get ’em by the dozen. Every hand-organ grinder in America grinds away in the hope of going back to Italy and purchasing a title. Why can’t you do the same?”

“Me? Me grind a hand-organ in America?” cried Hankinson.

“No, no; purchase a dukedom.”

“I don’t want a dukedom; I want a duchessdom.”

“That’s all right. Buy the title, give it to the cook, and let her marry some specter of her own rank; she can give him the title; and there you are!”

“Good scheme!” cried Terwilliger. “But I say, Molly, don’t you think it would be better to get her to bring the specter over here, and have me give him the title, and then let him marry her here?”

“No, I don’t. If you give it to him first, the chances are he would go back on his bargain. He’d say that, being a duke, he couldn’t marry a cook.”

“You have a large mind, Molly,” said Terwilliger.

“I know men!” snapped Mrs. Terwilliger.

And so it happened. Hankinson Judson Terwilliger applied by wire to the authorities in Rome for all right, title, and interest in one dukedom, free from encumbrances, irrevocable, and duly witnessed by the proper dignitaries of the Italian government, and at the second interview with the specter cook of Bangletop, he was able to show her a cablegram received from the Eternal City stating that the papers would be sent upon receipt of the applicant’s check for one hundred lire.

“’Ow much his that?” asked the ghost.

“One hundred lire?” returned Terwilliger, repeating the sum to gain time to think. He was himself surprised at the cheapness of the duchy, and he was afraid that if the ghost knew its real value she would decline to take it. “One hundred lire? Why, that’s about 750,000 dollars—150,000 pounds. They charge high for their titles,” he added, blushing slightly.

“Pretty ’igh,” returned the ghost. “But h’I carn’t be a duke, ye know. ’Ow’ll I manidge that?”

Hankinson explained his wife’s scheme to the specter.

“That’s helegant,” said she. “H’I’ve loved a butler o’ the Bangletops for nigh hon to two ’undred years, but, some’ow or hother, he’s kep’ shy o’ me. This’ll fix ’im. But h’I say, Mr. Terwilliger, his one o’ them Heyetalian dukes as good as a Henglish one?”

“Every bit,” said Terwilliger. “A duke’s a duke the world over. Don’t you know the lines of Burns, ‘A duke’s a duke for a’ that’?”

“Never ’eard of ’im,” replied the ghost.

“Well, you look him up when you get settled down at home. He was a smart man here, and, if his ghost does him justice, you’ll be mighty glad to know him,” Terwilliger answered.

And thus was Bangletop Hall delivered of its uncanny visitor. The ducal appointment, entitling its owner to call himself “Duke of Cavalcadi,” was received in due time, and handed over to the curse of the kitchen, who immediately disappeared, and permanently, from the haunts that had known her for so long and so disadvantageously. Bangletop Hall is now the home of a happy family, to whom all are devoted, and from whose ménage no cook has ever been known to depart, save for natural causes, despite all that has gone before.

Ariadne has become Countess of Mugley, and Mrs. Terwilliger is content with her Judson, whom, however, she occasionally calls Duke of Cavalcadi, claiming that he is the representative of that ancient and noble family on earth. As for Judson, he always smiles when his wife calls him Duke, but denies the titular impeachment, for he is on good terms with his landlord, whose admiration for his tenant’s wholly unexpected ability to retain his cook causes him to regard him as a supernatural being, and therefore worthy of a Bangletop’s regard.

“All of which,” Terwilliger says to Mrs. Terwilliger, “might not be so, my dear, were I really the duke, for I honestly believe that if there is a feud of long standing anywhere in the universe, it is between the noble families of Bangletop and Cavalcadi over on the other shore.”

«

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The Speck on the Lens

“Talking about inventions,” said the oculist, as he very dexterously pocketed two of the pool balls, the handsome ringer, more familiarly known as the fifteen ball, and the white ball itself, thereby adding somewhat to the minus side of his string—“talking about inventions, I had a curious experience last August. It was an experience which was not only interesting from an inventive point of view, but it had likewise a moral, which, will become more or less obvious as I unfold the story.”

•    •    •

You know I rented and occupied a place in Yonkers last summer. It was situated on the high lands to the north of the city, a little this side of Greystone, overlooking that magnificent stream, the Hudson, the ever-varying beauties of which so few of the residents along its banks really appreciate. It was a comfortable spot, with a few trees about it, a decent-sized garden—large enough to raise a tomato or two for a Sunday-night salad—and a lawn which was a cure for sore eyes, its soft, sheeny surface affording a most restful object upon which to feast the tired optic. I believe it was that lawn that first attracted me as I drove by the place with a patient I had in tow. It was just after a heavy shower, and the sun breaking through the clouds and lighting up the rain-soaked grass gave to it a glistening golden greenness that to my eyes was one of the most beautiful and soul-satisfying bits of color I had seen in a long time. “Oh, for a summer of that!” I said to myself, little thinking that the beginning of a summer thereof was to fall to my lot before many days—for on May 1st I signed papers which made me to all intents and purposes proprietor of the place for the ensuing six months.

At one corner of the grounds stood, I should say, a dozen apple-trees, the spreading branches of which seemed to form a roof for a sort of enchanted bower, in which, you may be sure, I passed many of my leisure hours, swinging idly in a hammock, the cool breezes from the Hudson, concerning which so many people are skeptical, but which nevertheless exist, bringing delight to the ear and nostril as well as to the “fevered brow,” which is so fashionable in the neighborhood of New York in the summer, making the leaves rustle in a tuneful sort of fashion, and laden heavily with the sweet odors of many a garden close over which they passed before they got to me.

•    •    •

“Put that in rhyme, doctor, and there’s your poem,” said the lieutenant, as he made a combination scratch involving every ball on the table.

“I’ll do it,” said the doctor; “and then I’ll have it printed as Appendix J to the third edition of my work on Sixty Astigmatisms, and How to Acquire Them. But to get back to my story,” he continued.

•    •    •

I was lying there in my hammock one afternoon trying to take a census of the butterflies in sight, when I thought I heard someone back of me call me by name. Instantly the butterfly census was forgotten, and I was on the alert; but—whether there was something the matter with my eyes or not, I do not know—despite all my alertness, there wasn’t a soul in sight that I could see. Of course, I was slightly mystified at first, and then I attributed the interruption either to imagination or to some passerby, whose voice, wafted on the breeze, might have reached my ears. I threw myself back into the hammock once more, and was just about dozing off to the lullaby sung by a bee to the accompaniment of the rustling leaves, when I again heard my name distinctly spoken.

This time there was no mistake about it, for as I sprang to my feet and looked about, I saw coming towards me a man of unpleasantly cadaverous aspect, whose years, I should judge, were at least eighty in number. His beard was so long and scant that, to keep the breezes from blowing it about to his discomfort, he had tucked the ends of it into his vest pocket; his eyes, black as coals, were piercing as gimlets, their sharpness equaled by nothing that I had ever seen, excepting perhaps the point of this same person’s nose, which was long and thin, suggesting a razor with a bowie point; his slight body was clad in sombre garb, and at first glance he appeared to me so disquietingly like a visitor from the supernatural world that I shuddered; but when he spoke, his voice was all gentleness, and whatever of fear I had experienced was in a moment dissipated.

“You are Doctor Carey?” he said, in a timid sort of fashion.

“Yes,” I replied; “I am. What can I do for you?”

“The distinguished oculist?” he added, as if not hearing my question.

“Well, I’m a sort of notorious eye-doctor,” I answered, my well-known modesty preventing my entire acquiescence in his manner of putting it.

He smiled pleasantly as I said this, and then drew out of his coattail pocket a small tin box, which, until he opened it, I supposed contained a drinking-cup—one of those folding tin cups.

“Doctor Carey,” said he, sitting down in the hammock which I had vacated, and toying with the tin box—a proceeding that was so extraordinarily cool that it made me shiver—“I have been looking for you for just sixty-three mortal years.”

“Excuse me,” I returned, as nonchalantly as I could, considering the fact that I was beginning to be annoyed—“excuse me, but that statement seems to indicate that I was born famous, which I’m inclined to doubt. Inasmuch as I am not yet fifty years old, I cannot understand how it has come to pass that you have been looking for me for sixty-three years.”

“Nevertheless, my statement was correct,” said he. “I have been looking for you for sixty-three years, but not for you as you.”

This made me laugh, although it added slightly to my nervousness, which was now beginning to return. To have a man with a tin box in his hand tell me he had been looking for me for thirteen years longer than I had lived, and then to have him add that it was not, however, me as myself that he wanted, was amusing in a sense, and yet I could not help feeling that it would be a relief to know that the tin box did hold a drinking-cup, and not dynamite.

“You seem to speak English,” I said, in answer to this remark, “and I have always thought I understood that language pretty well, but you’ll excuse me if I say that I don’t see your point.”

“Why is it that great men are so frequently obtuse?” he said, languidly, giving the ground such a push with his toe that it set the hammock swinging furiously. “When I say that I have searched for you all these years, but not for you as you, I mean not for you as Dr. Carey, not for you as an individual, but for you as the possessor of a very rare eye.”

“Go on,” I said, feebly, and rubbed my forehead, thinking perhaps my brains had got into a tangle, and were responsible for this extraordinary affair. “What is the peculiar quality which makes my eye so rare?”

“There is only one pair of eyes like them in the world, that I know of,” said the stranger, “and I have visited all lands in search of them and experimented with all kinds of eyes.”

“And I am the proud possessor of that pair?” I queried, becoming slightly more interested.

“Not you,” said he. “You and I together possess that pair, however.”

“You and I?” I cried.

“Yes,” said he. “Your left eye and my right have the honor of being the only two unique eyes in the world.”

“That’s queer too,” I observed, a mixture of sarcasm and flippancy in my tones, I fear. “You mean twonique, don’t you?”

The old gentleman drew himself up with dignity, made a gesture of impatience, and remarked that if I intended to be flippant he would leave me. Of course I would not hear of this, now that my curiosity had been aroused, and so I apologized.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “But, my dear doctor, you cannot imagine my sensations when I found your eye yesterday.”

“Oh! You found it yesterday, did you?” I put in.

“Yes,” he said. “On Forty-third Street.”

“I was on Forty-third Street yesterday,” I replied, “but really I was not conscious of the loss of my eye.”

“Nobody said you had lost it,” said my visitor. “I only said I had found it. I mean by that that I found it as Columbus found America. America was not necessarily lost before it was found. I had the good fortune to be passing through the street as you left your club. I glanced into your face as I passed, caught sight of your eye, and my heart stood still. There at last was that for which I had so long and so earnestly searched, and so overcome was I with joy at my discovery that I seemed to lose all power of speech, of locomotion, or of sane thought, and not until you had passed entirely out of sight did I return really to my senses. Then I rushed madly into the clubhouse I had seen you leave a few moments before, described you to the man at the door, learned your name and address, and—well, here I am.”

“And what does all this extraordinary nonsense lead up to?” I asked. “What do you intend to do about my eye? Do you wish to borrow it, buy it, or steal it?”

“Doctor Carey,” said my visitor, sadly, “I shall not live very long. I have reason to believe that another summer will find me in my grave, and I do not want to die without imparting to the world the news of a marvelous discovery I have made—the details of a wonderful invention that I have not only conceived, but have actually put into working order. I, an unknown man—too old to be able to refute the charge of senility were anyone disposed to question the value of my statements—could announce to the world my great discovery a thousand times a day, and very properly the world would decline to believe in me. The world would cry humbug, and I should have been unable, had I failed to find you, to convince the world that I was not a humbug. With the discovery of your eye, all that is changed. I shall have an ally in you, and that is valuable for the reason that your statements, whatever they may be, will always be entitled to and will receive respectful attention. Here in this box is my invention. I shall let you discover its marvelous power for yourself, hoping that when you have discovered its power, you will tell the world of it, and of its inventor.”

With that, the old fellow handed me the tin box, which I opened with considerable misgivings as to possible results. There was no explosion, however. The cover came off easily enough, and on the inside was a curiously shaped telescope, not a drinking-cup, as I had at first surmised.

“Why, it’s a telescope, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes. What did you suppose it was?” he asked.

“I hadn’t an idea,” I replied, not exactly truthfully. “But it can’t be good for much in this shape,” I added, for, as I pulled the parts out and got it to its full length, I found that each section was curved, and that the whole formed an arc, which, though scarcely perceptible, nevertheless should, it seemed to me, have interfered with the utility of the instrument.

“That’s the point I want you to establish one way or the other,” said my visitor, getting up out of the hammock, and pacing nervously up and down the lawn. “To my eye that telescope is a marvel, and is the result of years of experiment. It fulfills my expectations, and if your eye is what I think it is, I shall at last have found another to whom it will appear the treasure it appears to me to be. You have a tower on your house, I see. Let us go up on the roof of the tower, and test the glass. Then we shall see if I claim too much for it.”

The earnestness of the old gentleman interested me hugely, and I led the way through the garden to the house, up the tower stairs to the roof, and then standing there, looking across the river at the Palisades looming up like a huge fortress before me, I put the telescope to my eye.

“I see absolutely nothing,” I said, after vainly trying to fathom the depths of the instrument.

“Alas!” began the old gentleman; and then he laughed, nervously. “You are using the wrong eye. Try the other one. It is your left eye that has the power to show the virtues of this glass.”

I obeyed his order, and then a most singular thing happened. Strange sights met my gaze. At first I could see nothing but the Palisades opposite me, but in an instant my horizon seemed to broaden, the vista through the telescope deepened, and before I knew it my sight was speeding, now through a beautiful country, over fields, hills, and valleys; then on through great cities, out to and over a broad, gently undulating stretch which I at once recognized as the prairie lands of the west. In a minute more I began to catch the idea of this wonderful glass, for I now saw rising up before me the wonderful beauties of the Yosemite, and then, like a flash of the lightning, my vision passed over the Sierra Nevada range, my eye swept down upon San Francisco, and was soon speeding over the waters of the Pacific.

Two minutes later I saw the strange pagodas of the Chinese rising before me. Sweeping my glass to the north, bleak Siberia met my gaze; then to the south I saw India, her jungles, her waste places. Not long after, a most awful sight met my gaze. I saw a huge ship at the moment of foundering in the Indian Ocean. Horrified, I turned my glass again to the north, and the minarets of Stamboul rose up before me; then the dome of St. Peter’s at Rome; then Paris; then London; then the Atlantic Ocean. I leveled my glass due west, and finally I could see nothing but one small, black speck—as like to a fleck of dust as to anything else—on the lens at the other end. With a movement of my hand, I tried to wipe it off, but it still remained, and, in answer to a chuckle at my side, I put the glass down.

“It is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” said the other.

“One can almost see around the world with it,” I cried, breathless nearly with enthusiasm.

“One can—quite,” said the inventor, calmly.

“Nonsense!” I said. “Don’t claim too much, my friend.”

“It is true,” said he. “Did you notice a speck on the glass? I am sure you did, for you tried to remove it.”

“Yes,” said I, “I did. But what of it? What does that signify?”

“It proves what I said,” he answered. “You did see all the way around the world with that glass. The black spot on the lens that you thought was a piece of dust was the back of your own head.”

“Nonsense, my boy! The back of my head is bigger than that,” I said.

“Certainly it is,” he responded; “but you must make some allowance for perspective. The back of your head is a trifle less than twenty-four thousand miles from the end of your nose the way you were looking at it.”

•    •    •

“You mean to say—” began the lieutenant, as the doctor paused to chalk his cue.

“Never mind what I mean to say,” said the doctor. “Reflect upon what I have said.”

“But the man and the telescope—what became of them?” asked the lieutenant.

“I was about to tell you that. The old fellow who had made this marvelous glass, which to two eyes that he knew of, and to only two, would work as was desired, feeling that he was about to die, had come to me to offer the glass for sale on two considerations. One was a consideration of $25. The other was that I would leave no stone unturned to discover a possible third person younger than myself with an eye similar to those we had, to whom at my death the glass should be transmitted, exacting from him the promise that he too would see that it was passed along in the same manner into the hands of posterity. I was also to acquaint the world with the story of the glass and the name of its inventor to the fullest extent possible.”

“And you, of course, accepted?”

“I did,” said the doctor; “but having no money in my pocket, I went down into the house to borrow it of my wife, and upon my return to the roof, found no trace of the glass, the old man, or the roof either.”

“What!” cried the lieutenant. “Are you crazy?”

“No,” smiled the doctor. “Not at all. For the moment I reached the roof of the house, I opened my eyes, and found myself still swinging in the hammock under the trees.”

“And the moral?” queried the lieutenant. “You promised a moral, or I should not have listened.”

“Always have money in your pocket,” replied the doctor, pocketing the last ball, and putting up his cue. “Then you are not apt to lose great bargains such as I lost for the want of $25.”

“It’s a good idea,” returned the lieutenant. “And you live up to it, I suppose?”

“I do,” returned the oculist, tapping his pocket significantly. “Always!”

“Then,” said the lieutenant, earnestly, “I wish you’d lend me a tenner, for really, doctor, I have gone clean broke.”

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A Midnight Visitor

I do not assert that what I am about to relate is in all its particulars absolutely true. Not, understand me, that it is not true, but I do not feel that I care to make an assertion that is more than likely to be received by a skeptical age with sneers of incredulity. I will content myself with a simple narration of the events of that evening, the memory of which is so indelibly impressed upon my mind, and which, were I able to do so, I should forget without any sentiments of regret whatsoever.

The affair happened on the night before I fell ill of typhoid fever, and is about the sole remaining remembrance of that immediate period left to me. Briefly the story is as follows:

Notwithstanding the fact that I was overworked in the practice of my profession—it was early in March, and I was preparing my contributions for the coming Christmas issues of the periodicals for which I write—I had accepted the highly honorable position of Entertainment Committeeman at one of the small clubs to which I belonged. I accepted the office, supposing that the duties connected with it were easy of performance, and with absolutely no notion that the faith of my fellow-committeemen in my judgment was so strong that they would ultimately manifest a desire to leave the whole program for the club’s diversion in my hands. This, however, they did; and when the month of March assumed command of the calendar I found myself utterly fagged out and at my wits’ end to know what style of entertainment to provide for the club meeting to be held on the evening of the 15th of that month.

I had provided already an unusually taking variety of evenings, of which one in particular, called the “Martyrs’ Night,” in which living authors writhed through selections from their own works, while an inhuman audience, every man of whom had suffered even as the victims then suffered, sat on tenscore of camp-stools puffing the smoke of twenty-five score of free cigars into their faces, and gloating over their misery, was extremely successful, and had gained for me among my professional brethren the enviable title of “Machiavelli Junior.” This performance, in fact, was the one now uppermost in the minds of the club members, having been the most recent of the series; and it had been prophesied by many men whose judgment was unassailable that no man, not even I, could ever conceive of anything that could surpass it. Disposed at first to question the accuracy of a prophecy to the effect that I was, like most others of my kind, possessed of limitations, I came finally to believe that perhaps, after all, these male Cassandras with whom I was thrown were right. Indeed, the more I racked my brains to think of something better than the “Martyrs’ Night,” the more I became convinced that in that achievement I had reached the zenith of my powers. The thing for me to do now was to hook myself securely on to the zenith and stay there. But how to do it? That was the question which drove sleep from my eyes, and deprived me for a period of six weeks of my reason, my hair departing immediately upon the restoration thereof—a not uncommon after-symptom of typhoid.

It was a typical March night, this one upon which the extraordinary incident about to be related took place. It was the kind of night that novelists use when they are handling a mystery that in the abstract would amount to nothing, but which in the concrete of a bit of wild, weird, and windy nocturnalism sends the reader into hysterics. It may be—I shall not attempt to deny it—that had it happened upon another kind of an evening—a soft, mild, balmy June evening, for instance—my own experience would have seemed less worthy of preservation in the amber of publicity, but of that the reader must judge for himself. The fact alone remains that upon the night when my uncanny visitor appeared, the weather department was apparently engaged in getting rid of its remnants. There was a large percentage of withering blast in the general make-up of the evening; there were rain and snow, which alternated in pattering upon my windowpane and whitening the apology for a wold that stands three blocks from my flat on Madison Square; the wind whistled as it always does upon occasions of this sort, and from all corners of my apartment, after the usual fashion, there seemed to come sounds of a supernatural order, the effect of which was to send cold chills off on their regular trips up and down the spine of their victim—in this instance myself. I wish that at the time the hackneyed quality of these sensations had appealed to me. That it did not do so was shown by the highly nervous state in which I found myself as my clock struck eleven. If I could only have realized at that hour that these symptoms were the same old threadbare premonitions of the appearance of a supernatural being, I should have left the house and gone to the club, and so have avoided the visitation then imminent. Had I done this, I should doubtless also have escaped the typhoid, since the doctors attributed that misfortune to the shock of my experience, which, in my then wearied state, I was unable to sustain—and what the escape of typhoid would have meant to me only those who have seen the bills of my physician and druggist for services rendered and prescriptions compounded are aware. That my mind unconsciously took thought of spirits was shown by the fact that when the first chill came upon me I arose and poured out for myself a stiff bumper of old Reserve Rye, which I immediately swallowed; but beyond this I did not go. I simply sat there before my fire and cudgeled my brains for an idea whereby my fellow-members at the Gutenberg Club might be amused. How long I sat there I do not know. It may have been ten minutes; it may have been an hour—I was barely conscious of the passing of time—but I do know that the clock in the Dutch Reformed Church steeple at Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue was clanging out the first stroke of the hour of midnight when my doorbell rang.

Theretofore—if I may be allowed the word—the tintinnabulation of my doorbell had been invariably pleasing unto me. I am fond of company, and company alone was betokened by its ringing, since my creditors gratify their passion for interviews at my office, if perchance they happen to find me there. But on this occasion—I could not at the moment tell why—its clanging seemed the very essence of discord. It jangled with my nervous system, and as it ceased I was conscious of a feeling of irritability which is utterly at variance with my nature outside of business hours. In the office, for the sake of discipline, I frequently adopt a querulous manner, finding it necessary in dealing with office-boys, but the moment I leave shop behind me I become a different individual entirely, and have been called a moteless sunbeam by those who have seen only that side of my character. This, by-the-way, must be regarded as a confidential communication, since I am at present engaged in preparing a vest-pocket edition of the philosophical works of Schopenhauer in words of one syllable, and were it known that the publisher had intrusted the magnificent pessimism of that illustrious juggler of words and theories to a “moteless sunbeam” it might seriously interfere with the sale of the work; and I may say, too, that this request that my confidence be respected is entirely disinterested, inasmuch as I declined to do the work on the royalty plan, insisting upon the payment of a lump sum, considerably in advance.

But to return. I heard the bell ring with a sense of profound disgust. I did not wish to see anybody. My whiskey was low, my quinine pills few in number; my chills alone were present in a profusion bordering upon ostentation.

“I’ll pretend not to hear it,” I said to myself, resuming my work of gazing at the flickering light of my fire—which, by-the-way, was the only light in the room.

“Ting-a-ling-a-ling” went the bell, as if in answer to my resolve.

“Confound the luck!” I cried, jumping from my chair and going to the door with the intention of opening it, an intention however which was speedily abandoned, for as I approached it a sickly fear came over me—a sensation I had never before known seemed to take hold of my being, and instead of opening the door, I pushed the bolt to make it the more secure.

“There’s a hint for you, whoever you are!” I cried. “Do you hear that bolt slide, you?” I added, tremulously, for from the other side there came no reply—only a more violent ringing of the bell.

“See here!” I called out, as loudly as I could, “who are you, anyhow. What do you want?”

There was no answer, except from the bell, which began again.

“Bell-wire’s too cheap to steal!” I called again. “If you want wire, go buy it; don’t try to pull mine out. It isn’t mine, anyhow. It belongs to the house.”

Still there was no reply, only the clanging of the bell; and then my curiosity overcame my fear, and with a quick movement I threw open the door.

“Are you satisfied now?” I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my laugh was short-lived.

“What made that bell ring?” I suddenly asked myself, and then the feeling of fear came upon me again. I gathered my somewhat shattered self together, sprang to my feet, slammed the door with such force that the corridors echoed to the sound, slid the bolt once more, turned the key, moved a heavy chair in front of it, and then fled like a frightened hare to the sideboard in my dining-room. There I grasped the decanter holding my whiskey, seized a glass from the shelf, and started to pour out the usual dram, when the glass fell from my hand, and was shivered into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor; for, as I poured, I glanced through the open door, and there in my sanctum the flicker of a random flame divulged the form of a being, the eyes of whom seemed fixed on mine, piercing me through and through. To say that I was petrified but dimly expresses the situation. I was granitized, and so I remained, until by a more luminous flicker from the burning wood I perceived that the being wore a flaring red necktie.

“He is human,” I thought; and with the thought the tension on my nervous system relaxed, and I was able to feel a sufficiently well-developed sense of indignation to demand an explanation. “This is a mighty cool proceeding on your part,” I said, leaving the sideboard and walking into the sanctum.

“Yes,” he replied, in a tone that made me jump, it was so extremely sepulchral—a tone that seemed as if it might have been acquired in a damp corner of some cave off the earth. “But it’s a cool evening.”

“I wonder that a man of your coolness doesn’t hire himself out to some refrigerating company,” I remarked, with a sneer which would have delighted the soul of Cassius himself.

“I have thought of it,” returned the being, calmly. “But never went any further. Summer-hotel proprietors have always outbid the refrigerating people, and they in turn have been laid low by millionaires, who have hired me on occasion to freeze out people they didn’t like, but who have persisted in calling. I must confess, though, my dear Hiram, that you are not much warmer yourself—this greeting is hardly what I expected.”

“Well, if you want to make me warmer,” I retorted, hotly, “just keep on calling me Hiram. How the deuce did you know of that blot on my escutcheon, anyhow?” I added, for Hiram was one of the crimes of my family that I had tried to conceal, my parents having fastened the name of Hiram Spencer Carrington upon me at baptism for no reason other than that my rich bachelor uncle, who subsequently failed and became a charge upon me, was so named.

“I was standing at the door of the church when you were baptized,” returned the visitor, “and as you were an interesting baby, I have kept an eye on you ever since. Of course I knew that you discarded Hiram as soon as you got old enough to put away childish things, and since the failure of your uncle I have been aware that you desired to be known as Spencer Carrington, but to me you are, always have been, and always will be, Hiram.”

“Well, don’t give it away,” I pleaded. “I hope to be famous someday, and if the American newspaper paragrapher ever got hold of the fact that once in my life I was Hiram, I’d have to Hiram to let me alone.”

“That’s a bad joke, Hiram,” said the visitor, “and for that reason I like it, though I don’t laugh. There is no danger of your becoming famous if you stick to humor of that sort.”

“Well, I’d like to know,” I put in, my anger returning—“I’d like to know who in Brindisi you are, what in Cairo you want, and what in the name of the seventeen hinges of the gates of Singapore you are doing here at this time of night?”

“When you were a baby, Hiram, you had blue eyes,” said my visitor. “Bonny blue eyes, as the poet says.”

“What of it?” I asked.

“This,” replied my visitor. “If you have them now, you can very easily see what I am doing here. I am sitting down and talking to you.”

“Oh, are you?” I said, with fine scorn. “I had not observed that. The fact is, my eyes were so weakened by the brilliance of that necktie of yours that I doubt I could see anything—not even one of my own jokes. It’s a scorcher, that tie of yours. In fact, I never saw anything so red in my life.”

“I do not see why you complain of my tie,” said the visitor. “Your own is just as bad.”

“Blue is never so withering as red,” I retorted, at the same time caressing the scarf I wore.

“Perhaps not—but—ah—if you will look in the glass, Hiram, you will observe that your point is not well taken,” said my vis-a-vis, calmly.

I acted upon the suggestion, and looked upon my reflection in the glass, lighting a match to facilitate the operation. I was horrified to observe that my beautiful blue tie, of which I was so proud, had in some manner changed, and was now of the same aggressive hue as was that of my visitor, red even as a brick is red. To grasp it firmly in my hands and tear it from my neck was the work of a moment, and then in a spirit of rage I turned upon my companion.

“See here,” I cried, “I’ve had quite enough of you. I can’t make you out, and I can’t say that I want to. You know where the door is—you will oblige me by putting it to its proper use.”

“Sit down, Hiram,” said he, “and don’t be foolish and ungrateful. You are behaving in a most extraordinary fashion, destroying your clothing and acting like a madman generally. What was the use of ripping up a handsome tie like that?”

“I despise loud hues. Red is a jockey’s color,” I answered.

“But you did not destroy the red tie,” said he, with a smile. “You tore up your blue one—look. There it is on the floor. The red one you still have on.”

Investigation showed the truth of my visitor’s assertion. That flaunting streamer of anarchy still made my neck infamous, and before me on the floor, an almost unrecognizable mass of shreds, lay my cherished cerulean tie. The revelation stunned me; tears came into my eyes, and trickling down over my cheeks, fairly hissed with the feverish heat of my flesh. My muscles relaxed, and I fell limp into my chair.

“You need stimulant,” said my visitor, kindly. “Go take a drop of your Old Reserve, and then come back here to me. I’ve something to say to you.”

“Will you join me?” I asked, faintly.

“No,” returned the visitor. “I am so fond of whiskey that I never molest it. That act which is your stimulant is death to the rye. Never realized that, did you?”

“No, I never did,” I said, meekly.

“And yet you claim to love it. Bah!” he said.

And then I obeyed his command, drained my glass to the dregs, and returned. “What is your mission?” I asked, when I had made myself as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances.

“To relieve you of your woes,” he said.

“You are a homeopath, I observe,” said I, with a sneer. “You are a homeopath in theory and an allopath in practice.”

“I am not usually unintelligent,” said he. “I fail to comprehend your meaning. Perhaps you express yourself badly.”

“I wish you’d express yourself for Zululand,” I retorted, hotly. “What I mean is, you believe in the similia similibus business, but you prescribe large doses. I don’t believe troubles like mine can be cured on your plan. A man can’t get rid of his stock by adding to it.”

“Ah, I see. You think I have added to your troubles?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered, with a fond glance at my ruined tie. “I know so.”

“Well, wait until I have laid my plan before you, and see if you won’t change your mind,” said my visitor, significantly.

“All right,” I said. “Proceed. Only hurry. I go to bed early, as a rule, and it’s getting quite early now.”

“It’s only one o’clock,” said the visitor, ignoring the sarcasm. “But I will hasten, as I’ve several other calls to make before breakfast.”

“Are you a milkman?” I asked.

“You are flippant,” he replied. “But, Hiram,” he added, “I have come here to aid you in spite of your unworthiness. You want to know what to provide for your club night on the 15th. You want something that will knock the ‘Martyr’s Night’ silly.”

“Not exactly that,” I replied, “I don’t want anything so abominably good as to make all the other things I have done seem failures. That is not good business.”

“Would you like to be hailed as the discoverer of genius? Would you like to be the responsible agent for the greatest exhibition of skill in a certain direction ever seen? Would you like to become the most famous impresario the world has ever known?”

“Now,” I said, forgetting my dignity under the enthusiasm with which I was inspired by my visitor’s words, and infected more or less with his undoubtedly magnetite spirit—“now you’re shouting.”

“I thought so, Hiram. I thought so, and that’s why I am here. I saw you on Wall Street today, and read your difficulty at once in your eyes, and I resolved to help you. I am a magician, and one or two little things have happened of late to make me wish to prestidigitate in public. I knew you were after a show of some kind, and I’ve come to offer you my services.”

“Oh, pshaw!” I said. “The members of the Gutenberg Club are men of brains—not children. Card tricks are hackneyed, and sleight-of-hand shows pall.”

“Do they, indeed?” said the visitor. “Well, mine won’t. If you don’t believe it, I’ll prove to you what I can do.”

“I have no paraphernalia,” I said.

“Well, I have,” said he, and as he spoke, a pack of cards seemed to grow out of my hands. I must have turned pale at this unexpected happening, for my visitor smiled, and said:

“Don’t be frightened. That’s only one of my tricks. Now choose a card,” he added, “and when you have done so, toss the pack in the air. Don’t tell me what the card is; it alone will fall to the floor.”

“Nonsense!” said I. “It’s impossible.”

“Do as I tell you.”

I did as he told me, to a degree only. I tossed the cards in the air without choosing one, although I made a feint of doing so.

Not a card fell back to the floor. They every one disappeared from view in the ceiling. If it had not been for the heavy chair I had rolled in front of the door, I think I should have fled.

“How’s that for a trick?” asked my visitor.

I said nothing, for the very good reason that my words stuck in my throat.

“Give me a little creme de menthe, will you, please?” said he, after a moment’s pause.

“I haven’t a drop in the house,” I said, relieved to think that this wonderful being could come down to anything so earthly.

“Pshaw, Hiram!” he ejaculated, apparently in disgust. “Don’t be mean, and, above all, don’t lie. Why, man, you’ve got a bottle full of it in your hand! Do you want it all?”

He was right. Where it came from I do not know; but, beyond question, the graceful, slim-necked bottle was in my right hand, and my left held a liqueur glass of exquisite form.

“Say,” I gasped, as soon as I was able to collect my thoughts, “what are your terms?”

“Wait a moment,” he answered. “Let me do a little mind-reading before we arrange preliminaries.”

“I haven’t much of a mind to read tonight,” I answered, wildly.

“You’re right there,” said he. “It’s like a dime novel, that mind of yours tonight. But I’ll do the best I can with it. Suppose you think of your favorite poem, and after turning it over in your mind carefully for a few minutes, select two lines from it, concealing them, of course, from me, and I will tell you what they are.”

Now my favorite poem, I regret to say, is Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwock,” a fact I was ashamed to confess to an utter stranger, so I tried to deceive him by thinking of some other lines. The effort was hardly successful, for the only other lines I could call to mind at the moment were from Rudyard Kipling’s rhyme, “The Post that Fitted,” and which ran,

“Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffin sits

Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary’s fits.”

“Humph!” ejaculated my visitor. “You’re a great Hiram, you are.”

And then rising from his chair and walking to my “poet’s corner,” the magician selected two volumes.

“There,” said he, handing me the Departmental Ditties. “You’ll find the lines you tried to fool me with at the foot of page thirteen. Look.”

I looked, and there lay that vile Sleary sentiment, in all the majesty of type, staring me in the eyes.

“And here,” added my visitor, opening Alice in the Looking-Glass—“here is the poem that to your mind holds all the philosophy of life:

“‘Come to my arms, my beamish boy,

He chortled in his joy.’”

I blushed and trembled. Blushed that he should discover the weakness of my taste, trembled at his power.

“I don’t blame you for coloring,” said the magician. “But I thought you said the Gutenberg was made up of men of brains? Do you think you could stay on the rolls a month if they were aware that your poetic ideals are summed up in the ‘Jabberwock’ and ‘Sleary’s Fits’?”

“My taste might be far worse,” I answered.

“Yes, it might. You might have stooped to liking some of your own verses. I ought really to congratulate you, I suppose,” retorted the visitor, with a sneering laugh.

This roused my ire again.

“Who are you, anyhow, that you come here and take me to task?” I demanded, angrily. “I’ll like anything I please, and without asking your permission. If I cared more for the Peterkin Papers than I do for Shakespeare, I wouldn’t be accountable to you, and that’s all there is about it.”

“Never mind who I am,” said the visitor. “Suffice to say that I am myself. You’ll know my name soon enough. In fact, you will pronounce it involuntarily the first thing when you wake in the morning, and then—” Here he shook his head ominously, and I felt myself grow rigid with fright in my chair. “Now for the final trick,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “Think of where you would most like to be at this moment, and I’ll exert my power to put you there. Only close your eyes first.”

I closed my eyes and wished. When I opened them I was in the billiard-room of the Gutenberg Club with Perkins and Tompson.

“For Heaven’s sake, Spencer,” they said, in surprise, “where did you drop in from? Why, man, you are as white as a sheet. And what a necktie! Take it off!”

“Grab hold of me, boys, and hold me fast,” I pleaded, falling on my knees in terror. “If you don’t, I believe I’ll die.”

The idea of returning to my sanctum was intolerably dreadful to me.

“Ha! ha!” laughed the magician, for even as I spoke to Perkins and Tompson I found myself seated opposite my infernal visitor in my room once more. “They couldn’t keep you an instant with me summoning you back.”

His laughter was terrible; his frown was pleasanter; and I felt myself gradually losing control of my senses.

“Go,” I cried. “Leave me, or you will have the crime of murder on your conscience.”

“I have no con—” he began; but I heard no more.

That is the last I remember of that fearful night. I must have fainted, and then have fallen into a deep slumber.

When I waked it was morning, and I was alone, but undressed and in bed, unconscionably weak, and surrounded by medicine bottles of many kinds. The clock on the mantle on the other side of the room indicated that it was after ten o’clock.

“Great Beelzebub!” I cried, taking note of the hour. “I’ve an engagement with Barlow at nine.”

And then a sweet-faced woman, who, I afterwards learned, was a professional nurse, entered the room, and within an hour I realized two facts. One was that I had lain ill for many days, and that my engagement with Barlow was now for six weeks unfulfilled; the other, that my midnight visitor was none other than—

And yet I don’t know. His tricks certainly were worthy of that individual; but Perkins and Tompson assert that I never entered the club that night, and surely if my visitor was Beelzebub himself he would not have omitted so important a factor of success as my actual presence in the billiard-room on that occasion would have been; and, besides, he was altogether too cool to have come from his reputed residence.

Altogether I think the episode most unaccountable, particularly when I reflect that while no trace of my visitor was discoverable in my room the next morning, as my nurse tells me, my blue necktie was in reality found upon the floor, crushed and torn into a shapeless bundle of frayed rags.

As for the club entertainment, I am told that, despite my absence, it was a wonderful success, redeemed from failure, the treasurer of the club said, by the voluntary services of a guest, who secured admittance on one of my cards, and who executed some sleight-of-hand tricks that made the members tremble, and whose mind-reading feats performed on the club’s butler not only made it necessary for him to resign his office, but disclosed to the House Committee the whereabouts of several cases of rare wines that had mysteriously disappeared.

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A Quicksilver
Cassandra

It was altogether queer, and Jingleberry to this day does not entirely understand it. He had examined his heart as carefully as he knew how, and had arrived at the entirely reasonable conclusion that he was in love. He had every symptom of that malady. When Miss Marian Chapman was within range of his vision there was room for no one else there. He suffered from that peculiar optical condition which enabled him to see but one thing at a time when she was present, and she was that one thing, which was probably the reason why in his mind’s eye she was the only woman in the world, for Marian was ever present before Jingleberry’s mental optic. He had also examined as thoroughly as he could in hypothesis the heart of this “only woman,” and he had—or thought he had, which amounts to the same thing—reason to believe that she reciprocated his affection. She certainly seemed glad always when he was about; she called him by his first name, and sometimes quarreled with him as she quarreled with no one else, and if that wasn’t a sign of love in woman, then Jingleberry had studied the sex all his years—and they were thirty-two—for nothing. In short, Marian behaved so like a sister to him that Jingleberry, knowing how dreams and women go by contraries, was absolutely sure that a sister was just the reverse from that relationship which in her heart of hearts she was willing to assume towards him, and he was happy in consequence. Believing this, it was not at all strange that he should make up his mind to propose marriage to her, though, like many other men, he was somewhat chicken-hearted in coming to the point. Four times had he called upon Marian for the sole purpose of asking her to become his wife, and four times had he led up to the point and then talked about something else. What quality it is in man that makes a coward of him in the presence of one he considers his dearest friend is not within the province of this narrative to determine, but Jingleberry had it in its most virulent form. He had often got so far along in his proposal as “Marian—er—will you—will you—,” and there he had as often stopped, contenting himself with such commonplace conclusions as “go to the matinee with me tomorrow?” or “ask your father for me if he thinks the stock market is likely to strengthen soon?” and other amazing substitutes for the words he so ardently desired, yet feared, to utter. But this afternoon—the one upon which the extraordinary events about to be narrated took place—Jingleberry had called resolved not to be balked in his determination to learn his fate. He had come to propose, and propose he would, ruat coelum. His confidence in a successful termination to his suit had been reinforced that very morning by the receipt of a note from Miss Chapman asking him to dine with her parents and herself that evening, and to accompany them after dinner to the opera. Surely that meant a great deal, and Jingleberry conceived that the time was ripe for a blushing “yes” to his long-deferred question. So he was here in the Chapman parlor waiting for the young lady to come down and become the recipient of the “interesting interrogatory,” as it is called in some sections of Massachusetts.

“I’ll ask her the first thing,” said Jingleberry, buttoning up his Prince Albert, as though to impart a possibly needed stiffening to his backbone. “She will say yes, and then I shall enjoy the dinner and the opera so much the more. Ahem! I wonder if I am pale—I feel sort of—um—There’s a mirror. That will tell.” Jingleberry walked to the mirror—an oval, gilt-framed mirror, such as was very much the vogue fifty years ago, for which reason alone, no doubt, it was now admitted to the gold-and-white parlor of the house of Chapman.

“Blessed things these mirrors,” said Jingleberry, gazing at the reflection of his face. “So reassuring. I’m not at all pale. Quite the contrary. I’m red as a sunset. Good omen that! The sun is setting on my bachelor days—and my scarf is crooked. Ah!”

The ejaculation was one of pleasure, for pictured in the mirror Jingleberry saw the form of Marian entering the room through the portieres.

“How do you do, Marian? been admiring myself in the glass,” he said, turning to greet her. “I—er—”

Here he stopped, as well he might, for he addressed no one. Miss Chapman was nowhere to be seen.

“Dear me!” said Jingleberry, rubbing his eyes in astonishment. “How extraordinary! I surely thought I saw her—why, I did see her—that is, I saw her reflection in the gla—Ha! ha! She caught me gazing at myself there and has hidden.”

He walked to the door and drew the portiere aside and looked into the hall. There was no one there. He searched every corner of the hall and of the dining-room at its end, and then returned to the parlor, but it was still empty. And then occurred the most strangely unaccountable event in his life.

As he looked about the parlor, he for the second time found himself before the mirror, but the reflection therein, though it was of himself, was of himself with his back turned to his real self, as he stood gazing amazedly into the glass; and besides this, although Jingleberry was alone in the real parlor, the reflection of the dainty room showed that there he was not so, for seated in her accustomed graceful attitude in the reflected armchair was nothing less than the counterfeit presentment of Marian Chapman herself.

It was a wonder Jingleberry’s eyes did not fall out of his head, he stared so. What a situation it was, to be sure, to stand there and see in the glass a scene which, as far as he could observe, had no basis in reality; and how interesting it was for Jingleberry to watch himself going through the form of chatting pleasantly there in the mirror’s depths with the woman he loved! It almost made him jealous, though, the reflected Jingleberry was so entirely independent of the real Jingleberry. The jealousy soon gave way to consternation, for, to the wondering suitor, the independent reflection was beginning to do that for which he himself had come. In other words, there was a proposal going on there in the glass, and Jingleberry enjoyed the novel sensation of seeing how he himself would look when passing through a similar ordeal. Altogether, however, it was not as pleasing as most novelties are, for there were distinct signs in the face of the mirrored Marian that the mirrored Jingleberry’s words were distasteful to her, and that the proposition he was making was not one she could entertain under any circumstances. She kept shaking her head, and the more she shook it, the more the glazed Jingleberry seemed to implore her to be his. Finally, Jingleberry saw his quicksilver counterpart fall upon his knees before Marian of the glass, and hold out his arms and hands towards her in an attitude of prayerful despair, whereupon the girl sprang to her feet, stamped her left foot furiously upon the floor, and pointed the unwelcome lover to the door.

Jingleberry was fairly staggered. What could be the meaning of so extraordinary a freak of nature? Surely it must be prophetic. Fate was kind enough to warn him in advance, no doubt; otherwise it was a trick. And why should she stoop to play so paltry a trick as that upon him? Surely fate would not be so petty. No. It was a warning. The mirror had been so affected by some supernatural agency that it divined and reflected that which was to be instead of confining itself to what Jingleberry called “simultaneity.” It led instead of following or acting coincidently with the reality, and it was the part of wisdom, he thought, for him to yield to its suggestion and retreat; and as he thought this, he heard a soft sweet voice behind him.

“I hope you haven’t got tired of waiting, Tom,” it said; and, turning, Jingleberry saw the unquestionably real Marian standing in the doorway.

“No,” he answered, shortly. “I—I have had a pleasant—very entertaining ten minutes; but I—I must hurry along, Marian,” he added. “I only came to tell you that I have a frightful headache, and—er—I can’t very well manage to come to dinner or go to the opera with you tonight.”

“Why, Tom,” pouted Marian, “I am awfully disappointed! I had counted on you, and now my whole evening will be spoiled. Don’t you think you can rest a little while, and then come?”

“Well, I—I want to, Marian,” said Jingleberry; “but, to tell the truth, I—I really am afraid I am going to be ill; I’ve had such a strange experience this afternoon. I—”

“Tell me what it was,” suggested Marian, sympathetically; and Jingleberry did tell her what it was. He told her the whole story from beginning to end—what he had come for, how he had happened to look in the mirror, and what he saw there; and Marian listened attentively to every word he said. She laughed once or twice, and when he had done she reminded him that mirrors have a habit of reversing everything; and somehow or other Jingleberry’s headache went, and—and—well, everything went!

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The Ghost Club

AN UNFORTUNATE EPISODE
IN THE LIFE OF No. 5010

Number 5010 was at the time when I received the details of this story from his lips a stalwart man of thirty-eight, swart of hue, of pleasing address, and altogether the last person one would take for a convict serving a term for sneak-thieving. The only outer symptoms of his actual condition were the striped suit he wore, the style and cut of which are still in vogue at Sing Sing prison, and the closely cropped hair, which showed off the distinctly intellectual lines of his head to great advantage.

He was engaged in making shoes when I first saw him, and so impressed was I with the contrast between his really refined features and grace of manner and those of his brutish-looking companions, that I asked my guide who he was, and what were the circumstances which had brought him to Sing Sing.

“He pegs shoes like a gentleman,” I said.

“Yes,” returned the keeper. “He’s werry troublesome that way. He thinks he’s too good for his position. We can’t never do nothing with the boots he makes.”

“Why do you keep him at work in the shoe department?” I queried.

“We haven’t got no work to be done in his special line, so we have to put him at whatever we can. He pegs shoes less badly than he does anything else.”

“What was his special line?”

“He was a gentleman of leisure travelin’ for his health afore he got into the toils o’ the law. His real name is Marmaduke Fitztappington De Wolfe, of Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwickshire. He landed in this country of a Tuesday, took to collectin’ souvenir spoons of a Friday, was jugged the same day, tried, convicted, and there he sets. In for two years more.”

“How interesting!” I said. “Was the evidence against him conclusive?”

“Extremely. A half-dozen spoons was found on his person.”

“He pleaded guilty, I suppose?”

“Not him. He claimed to be as innocent as a newborn babe. Told a cock-and-bull story about havin’ been deluded by spirits, but the judge and jury wasn’t to be fooled. They gave him every chance, too. He even cabled himself, the judge did, to Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwickshire, at his own expense, to see if the man was an impostor, but he never got no reply. There was them as said there wasn’t no such place as Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea in Warwickshire, but they never proved it.”

“I should like very much to interview him,” said I.

“It can’t be done, sir,” said my guide. “The rules is very strict.”

“You couldn’t—er—arrange an interview for me,” I asked, jingling a bunch of keys in my pocket.

He must have recognized the sound, for he colored and gruffly replied, “I has me orders, and I obeys ’em.”

“Just—er—add this to the pension fund,” I put in, handing him a five-dollar bill. “An interview is impossible, eh?”

“I didn’t say impossible,” he answered, with a grateful smile. “I said against the rules, but we has been known to make exceptions. I think I can fix you up.”

Suffice it to say that he did “fix me up,” and that two hours later 5010 and I sat down together in the cell of the former, a not too commodious stall, and had a pleasant chat, in the course of which he told me the story of his life, which, as I had surmised, was to me, at least, exceedingly interesting, and easily worth twice the amount of my contribution to the pension fund under the management of my guide of the morning.

“My real name,” said the unfortunate convict, “as you may already have guessed, is not 5010. That is an alias forced upon me by the State authorities. My name is really Austin Merton Surrennes.”

“Ahem!” I said. “Then my guide erred this morning when he told me that in reality you were Marmaduke Fitztappington De Wolfe, of Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwickshire?”

Number 5010 laughed long and loud. “Of course he erred. You don’t suppose that I would give the authorities my real name, do you? Why, man, I am a nephew! I have an aged uncle—a rich millionaire uncle—whose heart and will it would break were he to hear of my present plight. Both the heart and will are in my favor, hence my tender solicitude for him. I am innocent, of course—convicts always are, you know—but that wouldn’t make any difference. He’d die of mortification just the same. It’s one of our family traits, that. So I gave a false name to the authorities, and secretly informed my uncle that I was about to set out for a walking trip across the great American desert, requesting him not to worry if he did not hear from me for a number of years, America being in a state of semi-civilization, to which mails outside of certain districts are entirely unknown. My uncle being an Englishman and a conservative gentleman, addicted more to reading than to travel, accepts the information as veracious and suspects nothing, and when I am liberated I shall return to him, and at his death shall become a conservative man of wealth myself. See?”

“But if you are innocent and he rich and influential, why did you not appeal to him to save you?” I asked.

“Because I was afraid that he, like the rest of the world, would decline to believe my defense,” sighed 5010. “It was a good defense, if the judge had only known it, and I’m proud of it.”

“But ineffectual,” I put in. “And so, not good.”

“Alas, yes! This is an incredulous age. People, particularly judges, are hard-headed practical men of affairs. My defense was suited more for an age of mystical tendencies. Why, will you believe it, sir, my own lawyer, the man to whom I paid eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents for championing my cause, told me the defense was rubbish, devoid even of literary merit. What chance could a man have if his lawyer even didn’t believe in him?”

“None,” I answered, sadly. “And you had no chance at all, though innocent?”

“Yes, I had one, and I chose not to take it. I might have proved myself non compos mentis; but that involved my making a fool of myself in public before a jury, and I have too much dignity for that, I can tell you. I told my lawyer that I should prefer a felon’s cell to the richly furnished flat of a wealthy lunatic, to which he replied, ‘Then all is lost!’ And so it was. I read my defense in court. The judge laughed, the jury whispered, and I was convicted instanter of stealing spoons, when murder itself was no further from my thoughts than theft.”

“But they tell me you were caught red-handed,” said I. “Were not a half-dozen spoons found upon your person?”

“In my hand,” returned the prisoner. “The spoons were in my hand when I was arrested, and they were seen there by the owner, by the police, and by the usual crowd of small boys that congregate at such embarrassing moments, springing up out of sidewalks, dropping down from the heavens, swarming in from everywhere. I had no idea there were so many small boys in the world until I was arrested, and found myself the cynosure of a million or more innocent blue eyes.”

“Were they all blue-eyed?” I queried, thinking the point interesting from a scientific point of view, hoping to discover that curiosity of a morbid character was always found in connection with eyes of a specified hue.

“Oh no; I fancy not,” returned my host. “But to a man with a load of another fellow’s spoons in his possession, and a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, everything looks blue.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I replied. “But—er—just how, now, could you defend yourself when every bit of evidence, and—you will excuse me for saying so—conclusive evidence at that, pointed to your guilt?”

“The spoons were a gift,” he answered.

“But the owner denied that.”

“I know it; that’s where the beastly part of it all came in. They were not given to me by the owner, but by a lot of mean, lowdown, practical-joke-loving ghosts.”

Number 5010’s anger as he spoke these words was terrible to witness, and as he strode up and down the floor of his cell and dashed his arms right and left, I wished for a moment that I was elsewhere. I should not have flown, however, even had the cell door been open and my way clear, for his suggestion of a supernatural agency in connection with his crime whetted my curiosity until it was more keen than ever, and I made up my mind to hear the story to the end, if I had to commit a crime and get myself sentenced to confinement in that prison for life to do so.

Fortunately, extreme measures of this nature were unnecessary, for after a few moments Surrennes calmed down, and seating himself beside me on the cot, drained his water-pitcher to the dregs, and began.

“Excuse me for not offering you a drink,” he said, “but the wine they serve here, while moist, is hardly what a connoisseur would choose except for bathing purposes, and I compliment you by assuming that you do not wish to taste it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I do not like to take water straight, exactly. I always dilute it, in fact, with a little of this.”

Here I extracted a small flask from my pocket and handed it to him.

“Ah!” he said, smacking his lips as he took a long pull at its contents, “that puts spirit into a man.”

“Yes, it does,” I replied, ruefully, as I noted that he had left me very little but the flask; “but I don’t think it was necessary for you to deprive me of all mine.”

“No; that is, you can’t appreciate the necessity unless you—er—you have suffered in your life as I am suffering. You were never sent up yourself?”

I gave him a glance which was all indignation. “I guess not,” I said. “I have led a life that is above reproach.”

“Good!” he replied. “And what a satisfaction that is, eh? I don’t believe I’d be able to stand this jail life if it wasn’t for my conscience, which is as clear and clean as it would be if I’d never used it.”

“Would you mind telling me what your defense was?” I asked.

“Certainly not,” said he, cheerfully. “I’d be very glad to give it to you. But you must remember one thing—it is copyrighted.”

“Fire ahead!” I said, with a smile. “I’ll respect your copyright. I’ll give you a royalty on what I get for the story.”

“Very good,” he answered. “It was like this.”

•    •    •

To begin, I must tell you that when I was a boy preparing for college I had for a chum a brilliant fun-loving fellow named Hawley Hicks, concerning whose future various prophecies had been made. His mother often asserted that he would be a great poet; his father thought he was born to be a great general; our headmaster at the Scarberry Institute for Young Gentlemen prophesied the gallows. They were all wrong; though, for myself, I think that if he had lived long enough almost any one of the prophecies might have come true. The trouble was that Hawley died at the age of twenty-three. Fifteen years elapsed. I was graduated with high honors at Brazenose, lived a life of elegant leisure, and at the age of thirty-seven broke down in health. That was about a year ago. My uncle, whose heir and constant companion I was, gave me a liberal allowance, and sent me off to travel. I came to America, landed in New York early in September, and set about winning back the color which had departed from my cheeks by an assiduous devotion to such pleasures as New York affords. Two days after my arrival, I set out for an airing at Coney Island, leaving my hotel at four in the afternoon. On my way down Broadway I was suddenly startled at hearing my name spoken from behind me, and appalled, on turning, to see standing with outstretched hands no less a person than my defunct chum, Hawley Hicks.

•    •    •

“Impossible,” said I.

“Exactly my remark,” returned Number 5010. To which I added,

•    •    •

“Hawley Hicks, it can’t be you!”

“But it is me,” he replied.

And then I was convinced, for Hawley never was good on his grammar. I looked at him a minute, and then I said, “But, Hawley, I thought you were dead.”

“I am,” he answered. “But why should a little thing like that stand between friends?”

“It shouldn’t, Hawley,” I answered, meekly; “but it’s condemnedly unusual, you know, for a man to associate even with his best friends fifteen years after they’ve died and been buried.”

“Do you mean to say, Austin, that just because I was weak enough once to succumb to a bad cold, you, the dearest friend of my youth, the closest companion of my schooldays, the partner of my childish joys, intend to go back on me here in a strange city?”

“Hawley,” I answered, huskily, “not a bit of it. My letter of credit, my room at the hotel, my dress suit, even my ticket to Coney Island, are at your disposal; but I think the partner of your childish joys ought first to be let in on the ground-floor of this enterprise, and informed how the deuce you manage to turn up in New York fifteen years subsequent to your obsequies. Is New York the hereafter for boys of your kind, or is this some freak of my imagination?”

•    •    •

“That was an eminently proper question,” I put in, just to show that while the story I was hearing terrified me, I was not altogether speechless.

“It was, indeed,” said 5010; “and Hawley recognized it as such, for he replied at once.”

•    •    •

“Neither,” said he. “Your imagination is all right, and New York is neither heaven nor the other place. The fact is, I’m spooking, and I can tell you, Austin, it’s just about the finest kind of work there is. If you could manage to shuffle off your mortal coil and get in with a lot of ghosts, the way I have, you’d be playing in great luck.”

“Thanks for the hint, Hawley,” I said, with a grateful smile; “but, to tell you the truth, I do not find that life is entirely bad. I get my three meals a day, keep my pocket full of coin, and sleep eight hours every night on a couch that couldn’t be more desirable if it were studded with jewels and had mineral springs.”

“That’s your mortal ignorance, Austin,” he retorted. “I lived long enough to appreciate the necessity of being ignorant, but your style of existence is really not to be mentioned in the same cycle with mine. You talk about three meals a day, as if that were an ideal; you forget that with the eating your labor is just begun; those meals have to be digested, every one of ’em, and if you could only understand it, it would appall you to see what a fearful wear and tear that act of digestion is. In my life you are feasting all the time, but with no need for digestion. You speak of money in your pockets; well, I have none, yet am I the richer of the two. I don’t need money. The world is mine. If I chose to I could pour the contents of that jeweler’s window into your lap in five seconds, but cui bono? The gems delight my eye quite as well where they are; and as for travel, Austin, of which you have always been fond, the spectral method beats all. Just watch me!”

I watched him as well as I could for a minute, and then he disappeared. In another minute he was before me again.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose you’ve been around the block in that time, eh?”

He roared with laughter. “Around the block?” he ejaculated. “I have done the Continent of Europe, taken a run through China, haunted the Emperor of Japan, and sailed around the Horn since I left you a minute ago.”

He was a truthful boy in spite of his peculiarities, Hawley was, (said Surrennes, quietly), so I had to believe what he said. He abhorred lies.

•    •    •

“That was pretty fast traveling, though,” said I. “He’d make a fine messenger-boy.”

“That’s so. I wish I’d suggested it to him,” smiled my host. “But I can tell you, sir, I was astonished.”

•    •    •

“Hawley,” I said, “you always were a fast youth, but I never thought you would develop into this. I wonder you’re not out of breath after such a journey.”

“Another point, my dear Austin, in favor of my mode of existence. We spooks have no breath to begin with. Consequently, to get out of it is no deprivation. But, I say,” he added, “whither are you bound?”

“To Coney Island to see the sights,” I replied. “Won’t you join me?”

“Not I,” he replied. “Coney Island is tame. When I first joined the specter band, it seemed to me that nothing could delight me more than an eternal round of gaiety like that; but, Austin, I have changed. I have developed a good deal since you and I were parted at the grave.”

“I should say you had,” I answered. “I doubt if many of your old friends would know you.”

“You seem to have had difficulty in so doing yourself, Austin,” he replied, regretfully; “but see here, old chap, give up Coney Island, and spend the evening with me at the club. You’ll have a good time, I can assure you.”

“The club?” I said. “You don’t mean to say you visions have a club?”

“I do indeed; the Ghost Club is the most flourishing association of choice spirits in the world. We have rooms in every city in creation; and the finest part of it is there are no dues to be paid. The membership list holds some of the finest names in history—Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Napoleon Bonaparte, Caesar, George Washington, Mozart, Frederick the Great, Marc Antony—Cassius was black-balled on Caesar’s account—Galileo, Confucius.”

“You admit the Chinese, eh?” I queried.

“Not always,” he replied. “But Con was such a good fellow they hadn’t the heart to keep him out; but you see, Austin, what a lot of fine fellows there are in it.”

“Yes, it’s a magnificent list, and I should say they made a pretty interesting set of fellows to hear talk,” I put in.

“Well, rather,” Hawley replied. “I wish you could have heard a debate between Shakespeare and Caesar on the resolution, ‘The Pen is mightier than the Sword;’ it was immense.”

“I should think it might have been,” I said. “Which won?”

“The sword party. They were the best fighters; though on the merits of the argument Shakespeare was ’way ahead.”

“If I thought I’d stand a chance of seeing spooks like that, I think I’d give up Coney Island and go with you,” I said.

“Well,” replied Hawley, “that’s just the kind of a chance you do stand. They’ll all be there tonight, and as this is ladies’ day, you might meet Lucretia Borgia, Cleopatra, and a few other feminine apparitions of considerable note.”

“That settles it. I am yours for the rest of the day,” I said, and so we adjourned to the rooms of the Ghost Club.

These rooms were in a beautiful house on Fifth Avenue; the number of the house you will find on consulting the court records. I have forgotten it. It was a large, broad, brownstone structure, and must have been over one hundred and fifty feet in depth. Such fittings I never saw before; everything was in the height of luxury, and I am quite certain that among beings to whom money is a measure of possibility no such magnificence is attainable. The paintings on the walls were by the most famous artists of our own and other days. The rugs on the superbly polished floors were worth fortunes, not only for their exquisite beauty, but also for their extreme rarity. In keeping with these were the furniture and bric-a-brac. In short, my dear sir, I had never dreamed of anything so dazzlingly, so superbly magnificent as that apartment into which I was ushered by the ghost of my quondam friend Hawley Hicks.

At first I was speechless with wonder, which seemed to amuse Hicks very much.

“Pretty fine, eh?” he said, with a short laugh.

“Well,” I replied, in a moment, “considering that you can get along without money, and that all the resources of the world are at your disposal, it is not more than half bad. Have you a library?”

I was always fond of books, (explained 5010 in parenthesis to me,) and so was quite anxious to see what the club of ghosts could show in the way of literary treasures. Imagine my surprise when Hawley informed me that the club had no collection of the sort to appeal to the bibliophile.

“No,” he answered, “we have no library.”

“Rather strange,” I said, “that a club to which men like Shakespeare, Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, and other deceased literati belong should be deficient in that respect.”

“Not at all,” said he. “Why should we want books when we have the men themselves to tell their tales to us? Would you give a rap to possess a set of Shakespeare if William himself would sit down and rattle off the whole business to you any time you chose to ask him to do it? Would you follow Scott’s printed narratives through their devious and tedious periods if Sir Walter in spirit would come to you on demand, and tell you all the old stories over again in a tenth part of the time it would take you to read the introduction to one of them?”

“I fancy not,” I said. “Are you in such luck?”

“I am,” said Hawley; “only personally I never send for Scott or Shakespeare. I prefer something lighter than either—Douglas Jerrold or Marryat. But best of all, I like to sit down and hear Noah swap animal stories with Davy Crockett. Noah’s the brightest man of his age in the club. Adam’s kind of slow.”

“How about Solomon?” I asked, more to be flippant than with any desire for information. I was much amused to hear Hawley speak of these great spirits as if he and they were chums of long standing.

“Solomon has resigned from the club,” he said, with a sad sigh. “He was a good fellow, Solomon was, but he thought he knew it all until old Doctor Johnson got hold of him, and then he knuckled under. It’s rather rough for a man to get firmly established in his belief that he is the wisest creature going, and then, after a couple of thousand years, have an Englishman come along and tell him things he never knew before, especially the way Sam Johnson delivers himself of his opinions. Johnson never cared whom he hurt, you know, and when he got after Solomon, he did it with all his might.”

•    •    •

“I wonder if Boswell was there?” I ventured, interrupting 5010 in his extraordinary narrative for an instant.

“Yes, he was there,” returned the prisoner. “I met him later in the evening; but he isn’t the spook he might be. He never had much spirit anyhow, and when he died he had to leave his nose behind him, and that settled him.”

“Of course,” I answered. “Boswell with no nose to stick into other people’s affairs would have been like Othello with Desdemona left out. But go on. What did you do next?”

•    •    •

Well, (5010 resumed) after I’d looked about me, and drunk my fill of the magnificence on every hand, Hawley took me into the music-room, and introduced me to Mozart and Wagner and a few other great composers. In response to my request, Wagner played an impromptu version of “Daisy Bell” on the organ. It was great; not much like “Daisy Bell,” of course; more like a collision between a cyclone and a simoom in a tin-plate mining camp, in fact, but, nevertheless, marvelous. I tried to remember it afterwards, and jotted down a few notes, but I found the first bar took up seven sheets of foolscap, and so gave it up. Then Mozart tried his hand on a banjo for my amusement, Mendelssohn sang a half-dozen of his songs without words, and then Gottschalk played one of Poe’s weird stories on the piano.

Then Carlyle came in, and Hawley introduced me to him. He was a gruff old gentleman, and seemingly anxious to have Froude become an eligible, and I judged from the rather fierce manner in which he handled a club he had in his hand, that there were one or two other men of prominence still living he was anxious to meet. Dickens, too, was desirous of a two-minute interview with certain of his at present purely mortal critics; and, between you and me, if the wink that Bacon gave Shakespeare when I spoke of Ignatius Donnelly meant anything, the famous cryptogrammarian will do well to drink a bottle of the elixir of life every morning before breakfast, and stave off dissolution as long as he can. There’s no getting around the fact, sir, (Surrennes added, with a significant shake of the head), that the present leaders of literary thought with critical tendencies are going to have the hardest kind of a time when they cross the river and apply for admission to the Ghost Club.

I don’t ask for any better fun than that of watching from a safe distance the initiation ceremonies of the next dozen who go over. And as an Englishman, sir, who thoroughly believes in and admires Lord Wolseley, if I were out of jail and able to do it, I’d write him a letter, and warn him that he would better revise his estimates of certain famous soldiers no longer living if he desires to find rest in that mysterious other world whither he must eventually betake himself. They’ve got their swords sharpened for him, and he’ll discover an instance when he gets over there in which the sword is mightier than the pen.

After that, Hawley took me upstairs and introduced me to the spirit of Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom I passed about twenty-five minutes talking over his victories and defeats. He told me he never could understand how a man like Wellington came to defeat him at Waterloo, and added that he had sounded the Iron Duke on the subject, and found him equally ignorant.

So the afternoon and evening passed. I met quite a number of famous ladies—Catherine, Marie Louise, Josephine, Queen Elizabeth, and others. Talked architecture with Queen Anne, and was surprised to learn that she never saw a Queen Anne cottage. I took Peg Woffington down to supper, and altogether had a fine time of it.

•    •    •

“But, my dear Surrennes,” I put in at this point, “I fail to see what this has to do with your defense in your trial for stealing spoons.”

“I am coming to that,” said 5010, sadly.

•    •    •

I dwell on the moments passed at the club because they were the happiest of my life, and am loath to speak of what followed, but I suppose I must. It was all due to Queen Isabella that I got into trouble. Peg Woffington presented me to Queen Isabella in the supper-room, and while her majesty and I were talking, I spoke of how beautiful everything in the club was, and admired especially a half-dozen old Spanish spoons upon the sideboard. When I had done this, the Queen called to Ferdinand, who was chatting with Columbus on the other side of the room, to come to her, which he did with alacrity. I was presented to the King, and then my troubles began.

“Mr. Surrennes admires our spoons, Ferdinand,” said the Queen.

The King smiled, and turning to me observed, “Sir, they are yours. Er—waiter, just do these spoons up and give them to Mr. Surrennes.”

Of course, I protested against this; whereupon the King looked displeased.

“It is a rule of our club, sir, as well as an old Spanish custom, for us to present to our guests anything that they may happen openly to admire. You are surely sufficiently well acquainted with the etiquette of club life to know that guests may not with propriety decline to be governed by the regulations of the club whose hospitality they are enjoying.”

“I certainly am aware of that, my dear King,” I replied, “and of course I accept the spoons with exceeding deep gratitude. My remonstrance was prompted solely by my desire to explain to you that I was unaware of any such regulation, and to assure you that when I ventured to inform your good wife that the spoons had excited my sincerest admiration, I was not hinting that it would please me greatly to be accounted their possessor.”

“Your courtly speech, sir,” returned the King, with a low bow, “is ample assurance of your sincerity, and I beg that you will put the spoons in your pocket and say no more. They are yours. Verb. sap.”

I thanked the great Spaniard and said no more, pocketing the spoons with no little exultation, because, having always been a lover of the quaint and beautiful, I was glad to possess such treasures, though I must confess to some misgivings as to the possibility of their being unreal. Shortly after this episode I looked at my watch and discovered that it was getting well on towards eleven o’clock, and I sought out Hawley for the purpose of thanking him for a delightful evening and of taking my leave. I met him in the hall talking to Euripides on the subject of the amateur stage in the United States. What they said I did not stop to hear, but offering my hand to Hawley informed him of my intention to depart.

“Well, old chap,” he said, affectionately, “I’m glad you came. It’s always a pleasure to see you, and I hope we may meet again sometime soon.” And then, catching sight of my bundle, he asked, “What have you there?”

I informed him of the episode in the supper-room, and fancied I perceived a look of annoyance on his countenance.

“I didn’t want to take them, Hawley,” I said; “but Ferdinand insisted.”

“Oh, it’s all right!” returned Hawley. “Only I’m sorry! You’d better get along home with them as quickly as you can and say nothing; and, above all, don’t try to sell them.”

“But why?” I asked. “I’d much prefer to leave them here if there is any question of the propriety of my—”

Here, (continued 5010) Hawley seemed to grow impatient, for he stamped his foot angrily, and bade me go at once or there might be trouble. I proceeded to obey him, and left the house instanter, slamming the door somewhat angrily behind me. Hawley’s unceremonious way of speeding his parting guest did not seem to me to be exactly what I had a right to expect at the time. I see now what his object was, and acquit him of any intention to be rude, though I must say if I ever catch him again, I’ll wring an explanation from him for having introduced me into such bad company.

As I walked down the steps, the chimes of the neighboring church were clanging out the hour of eleven. I stopped on the last step to look for a possible hansom-cab, when a portly gentleman accompanied by a lady started to mount the stoop. The man eyed me narrowly for a moment, and then, sending the lady up the steps, he turned to me and said,

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve just left the club,” I answered. “It’s all right. I was Hawley Hicks’s guest. Whose ghost are you?”

“What the deuce are you talking about?” he asked, rather gruffly, much to my surprise and discomfort.

“I tried to give you a civil answer to your question,” I returned, indignantly.

“I guess you’re crazy—or a thief,” he rejoined.

“See here, friend,” I put in, rather impressively, “just remember one thing. You are talking to a gentleman, and I don’t take remarks of that sort from anybody, spook or otherwise. I don’t care if you are the ghost of the Emperor Nero, if you give me any more of your impudence I’ll dissipate you to the four quarters of the universe—see?”

Then he grabbed me and shouted for the police, and I was painfully surprised to find that instead of coping with a mysterious being from another world, I had two hundred and ten pounds of flesh and blood to handle. The populace began to gather. The million and a half of small boys of whom I have already spoken—mostly street gamins, owing to the lateness of the hour—sprang up from all about us. Hansom-cab drivers, attracted by the noise of our altercation, drew up to the sidewalk to watch developments, and then, after the usual fifteen or twenty minutes, the blue-coat emissary of justice appeared.

“Pwhat’s dthis?” he asked.

“I have detected this man leaving my house in a suspicious manner,” said my adversary. “I have reason to suspect him of thieving.”

“Your house!” I ejaculated, with fine scorn. “I’ve got you there; this is the house of the New York Branch of the Ghost Club. If you want it proved,” I added, turning to the policeman, “ring the bell, and ask.”

“Oi t’ink dthat’s a fair prophosition,” observed the policeman. “Is the motion siconded?”

“Oh, come now!” cried my captor. “Stop this nonsense, or I’ll report you to the department. This is my house, and has been for twenty years. I want this man searched.”

“Oi hov no warrant permithin’ me to invistigate the contints ov dthe gintlemon’s clothes,” returned the intelligent member of the force. “But av yez ’ll take yer solemn alibi dthat yez hov rayson t’ belave the gintlemon has worked ony habeas corpush business on yure propherty, oi’ll jug dthe blag-yard.”

“I’ll be responsible,” said the alleged owner of the house. “Take him to the station.”

“I refuse to move,” I said.

“Oi’ll not carry yez,” said the policeman, “and oi’d advoise ye to furnish yure own locomotion. Av ye don’t, oi’ll use me club. Dthot’s th’ ounly wy yez ’ll git dthe ambulanch.”

“Oh, well, if you insist,” I replied, “of course I’ll go. I have nothing to fear.”

You see, (added 5010 to me, in parenthesis,) the thought suddenly flashed across my mind that if all was as my captor said, if the house was really his and not the Ghost Club’s, and if the whole thing was only my fancy, the spoons themselves would turn out to be entirely fanciful; so I was all right—or at least I thought I was. So we trotted along to the police station. On the way I told the policeman the whole story, which impressed him so that he crossed himself a half-dozen times, and uttered numerous ejaculatory prayers—“Mai dthe shaints presharve us,” and “Hivvin hov mershy,” and others of a like import.

“Waz dthe ghosht ov Dan O’Connell dthere?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I shook hands with it.”

“Let me shaik dthot hand,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, and then he whispered in my ear: “Oi belave yez to be innoshunt; but av yez ain’t, for the love of Dan, oi’ll let yez eshcape.”

“Thanks, old fellow,” I replied. “But I am innocent of wrongdoing, as I can prove.”

Alas! (sighed the convict) it was not to be so. When I arrived at the station-house, I was dumfounded to learn that the spoons were all too real. I told my story to the sergeant, and pointed to the monogram, “G.C.,” on the spoons as evidence that my story was correct; but even that told against me, for the alleged owner’s initials were G.C.—his name I withhold—and the monogram only served to substantiate his claim to the spoons. Worst of all, he claimed that he had been robbed on several occasions before this, and by midnight I found myself locked up in a dirty cell to await trial.

I got a lawyer, and, as I said before, even he declined to believe my story, and suggested the insanity dodge. Of course I wouldn’t agree to that. I tried to get him to subpoena Ferdinand and Isabella and Euripides and Hawley Hicks in my behalf, and all he’d do was to sit there and shake his head at me. Then I suggested going up to the Metropolitan Opera-house some fearful night as the clock struck twelve, and try to serve papers on Wagner’s spook—all of which he treated as unworthy of a moment’s consideration. Then I was tried, convicted, and sentenced to live in this beastly hole; but I have one strong hope to buoy me up, and if that is realized, I’ll be free tomorrow morning.

•    •    •

“What is that?” I asked.

“Why,” he answered, with a sigh, as the bell rang summoning him to his supper—“why, the whole horrid business has been so weird and uncanny that I’m beginning to believe it’s all a dream. If it is, why, I’ll wake up, and find myself at home in bed; that’s all. I’ve clung to that hope for nearly a year now, but it’s getting weaker every minute.”

“Yes, 5010,” I answered, rising and shaking him by the hand in parting; “that’s a mighty forlorn hope, because I’m pretty wide awake myself at this moment, and can’t be a part of your dream. The great pity is you didn’t try the insanity dodge.”

“Tut!” he answered. “That is the last resource of a weak mind.”

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A Psychical Prank

I

Willis had met Miss Hollister but once, and that, for a certain purpose, was sufficient. He was smitten. She represented in every way his ideal, although until he had met her his ideal had been something radically different. She was not at all Junoesque, and the maiden of his dreams had been decidedly so. She had auburn hair, which hitherto Willis had detested. Indeed, if the same hirsute wealth had adorned some other woman’s head, Willis would have called it red. This shows how completely he was smitten. She changed his point of view entirely. She shattered his old ideal and set herself up in its stead, and she did most of it with a smile.

There was something, however, about Miss Hollister’s eyes that contributed to the smiting of Willis’s heart. They were great round lustrous orbs, and deep. So deep were they and so penetrating that Willis’s affections were away beyond their own depth the moment Miss Hollister’s eyes looked into his, and at the same time he had a dim and slightly uncomfortable notion that she could read every thought his mind held within its folds—or rather, that she could see how utterly devoid of thought that mind was upon this ecstatic occasion, for Willis’s brain was set all agog by the sensations of the moment.

“By Jove!” he said to himself afterwards—for Willis, wise man that he could be on occasions, was his own confidant, to the exclusion of all others—“by Jove! I believe she can peer into my very soul; and if she can, my hopes are blasted, for she must be able to see that a soul like mine is no more worthy to become the affinity of one like hers than a mountain rill can hope to rival the Amazon.”

Nevertheless, Willis did hope.

“Something may turn up, and perhaps—perhaps I can devise some scheme by means of which my imperfections can be hidden from her. Maybe I can put stained glass over the windows of my soul, and keep her from looking through them at my shortcomings. Smoked glasses, perhaps—and why not? If smoked glasses can be used by mortals gazing at the sun, why may they not be used by me when gazing into those scarcely less glorious orbs of hers?”

Alas for Willis! The fates were against him. A far-off tribe of fates were in league to blast his chances of success forever, and this was how it happened:

Willis had occasion one afternoon to come uptown early. At the corner of Broadway and Astor Place he entered a Madison Avenue car, paid his fare, and sat down in one of the corner seats at the rear end of the car. His mind was, as usual, intent upon the glorious Miss Hollister. Surely no one who had once met her could do otherwise than think of her constantly, he reflected; and the reflection made him a bit jealous. What business had others to think of her? Impertinent, grovelling mortals! No man was good enough to do that—no, not even himself. But he could change. He could at least try to be worthy of thinking about her, and he knew of no other man who could. He’d like to catch anyone else doing so little as mentioning her name!

“Impertinent, grovelling mortals!” he repeated.

And then the car stopped at Seventeenth Street, and who should step on board but Miss Hollister herself!

“The idea!” thought Willis. “By Jove! there she is—on a horse-car, too! How atrocious! One might as well expect to see Minerva driving in a grocer’s wagon as Miss Hollister in a horse-car. Miserable, untactful world to compel Minerva to ride in a horse-cart, or rather Miss Hollister to ride in a grocer’s car! Absurdest of absurdities!”

Here he raised his hat, for Miss Hollister had bowed sweetly to him as she passed on to the far end of the car, where she stood hanging on to a strap.

“I wonder why she doesn’t sit down?” thought Willis; for as he looked about the car he observed that with the exception of the one he occupied all the seats were vacant. In fact, the only persons on board were Miss Hollister, the driver, the conductor, and himself.

“I think I’ll go speak to her,” he thought. And then he thought again: “No, I’d better not. She saw me when she entered, and if she had wished to speak to me she would have sat down here beside me, or opposite me perhaps. I shall show myself worthy of her by not thrusting my presence upon her. But I wonder why she stands? She looks tired enough.”

Here Miss Hollister indulged in a very singular performance. She bowed her head slightly at someone, apparently on the sidewalk, Willis thought, murmured something, the purport of which Willis could not catch, and sat down in the middle of the seat on the other side of the car, looking very much annoyed—in fact, almost unamiable.

Willis was more mystified than ever; but his mystification was as nothing compared to his anxiety when, on reaching Forty-second Street, Miss Hollister rose, and sweeping by him without a sign of recognition, left the car.

“Cut, by thunder!” ejaculated Willis, in consternation. “And why, I wonder? Most incomprehensible affair. Can she be a woman of whims—with eyes like those? Never. Impossible. And yet what else can be the matter?”

Try as he might, Willis could not solve the problem. It was utterly past solution as far as he was concerned.

“I’ll find out, and I’ll find out like a brave man,” he said, after racking his brains for an hour or two in a vain endeavor to get at the cause of Miss Hollister’s cut. “I’ll call upon her tonight and ask her.”

He was true to his first purpose, but not to his second. He called, but he did not ask her, for Miss Hollister did not give him the chance to do so. Upon receiving his card she sent down word that she was out. Two days later, meeting him face to face upon the street, she gazed coldly at him, and cut him once more. Six months later her engagement to a Boston man was announced, and in the autumn following Miss Hollister of New York became Mrs. Barrows of Boston. There were cards, but Willis did not receive one of them. The cut was indeed complete and final. But why? That had now become one of the great problems of Willis’s life. What had he done to be so badly treated?

II

A year passed by, and Willis recovered from the dreadful blow to his hopes, but he often puzzled over Miss Hollister’s singular behavior towards him. He had placed the matter before several of his friends, and, with the exception of one of them, none was more capable of solving his problem than he. This one had heard from his wife, a school friend and intimate acquaintance of Miss Hollister, now Mrs. Barrows, that Willis’s ideal had once expressed herself to the effect that she had admired Willis very much until she had discovered that he was not always as courteous as he should be.

“Courteous? Not as courteous as I should be?” retorted Willis. “When have I ever been anything else? Why, my dear Bronson,” he added, “you know what my attitude towards womankind—as well as mankind—has always been. If there is a creature in the world whose politeness is his weakness, I am that creature. I’m the most courteous man living. When I play poker in my own rooms I lose money, because I’ve made it a rule never to beat my guests in cards or anything else.”

“That isn’t politeness,” said Bronson. “That’s idiocy.”

“It proves my point,” retorted Willis. “I’m polite to the verge of insanity. Not as courteous as I should be! Great Scott! What did I ever do or say to give her that idea?”

“I don’t know,” Bronson replied. “Better ask her. Maybe you overdid your politeness. Overdone courtesy is often worse than boorishness. You may have been so polite on some occasion that you made Miss Hollister think you considered her an inferior person. You know what the poet insinuated. Sorosis holds no fury like a woman condescended to by a man.”

“I’ve half a mind to write to Mrs. Barrows and ask her what I did,” said Willis.

“That would be lovely,” said Bronson. “Barrows would be pleased.”

“True. I never thought of that,” replied Willis.

“You are not a thoughtful thinker,” said Bronson, dryly. “If I were you I’d bide my time, and someday you may get an explanation. Stranger things have happened; and my wife tells me that the Barrowses are to spend the coming winter in New York. You’ll meet them out somewhere, no doubt.”

“No; I shall decline to go where they are. No woman shall cut me a second time—not even Mrs. Barrows,” said Willis, firmly.

“Good! Stand by your colors,” said Bronson, with an amused smile.

A week or two later Willis received an invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Bronson to dine with them informally. “I have some very clever friends I want you to meet,” she wrote. “So be sure to come.”

Willis went. The clever friends were Mr. and Mrs. Barrows; and, to the surprise of Willis, he was received most effusively by the quondam Miss Hollister.

“Why, Mr. Willis,” she said, extending her hand to him. “How delightful to see you again!”

“Thank you,” said Willis, in some confusion. “I—er—I am sure it is a very pleasant surprise for me. I—er—had no idea—”

“Nor I,” returned Mrs. Barrows. “And really I should have been a little embarrassed, I think, had I known you were to be here. I—ha! ha!—it’s so very absurd that I almost hesitate to speak of it—but I feel I must. I’ve treated you very badly.”

“Indeed!” said Willis, with a smile. “How, pray?”

“Well, it wasn’t my fault really,” returned Mrs. Barrows; “but do you remember, a little over a year ago, my riding uptown on a horse-car—a Madison Avenue car—with you?”

“H’m!” said Willis, with an affectation of reflection. “Let me see; ah—yes—I think I do. We were the only ones on board, I believe, and—ah—”

Here Mrs. Barrows laughed outright. “You thought we were the only ones on board, but—we weren’t. The car was crowded,” she said.

“Then I don’t remember it,” said Willis. “The only time I ever rode on a horse-car with you to my knowledge was—”

“I know; this was the occasion,” interrupted Mrs. Barrows. “You sat in a corner at the rear end of the car when I entered, and I was very much put out with you because it remained for a stranger, whom I had often seen and to whom I had, for reasons unknown even to myself, taken a deep aversion, to offer me his seat, and, what is more, compel me to take it.”

“I don’t understand,” said Willis. “We were alone on the car.”

“To your eyes we were, although at the time I did not know it. To my eyes when I boarded it the car was occupied by enough people to fill all the seats. You returned my bow as I entered, but did not offer me your seat. The stranger did, and while I tried to decline it, I was unable to do so. He was a man of about my own age, and he had a most remarkable pair of eyes. There was no resisting them. His offer was a command; and as I rode along and thought of your sitting motionless at the end of the car, compelling me to stand, and being indirectly responsible for my acceptance of courtesies from a total and disagreeable stranger, I became so very indignant with you that I passed you without recognition as soon as I could summon up courage to leave. I could not understand why you, who had seemed to me to be the soul of politeness, should upon this occasion have failed to do not what I should exact from any man, but what I had reason to expect of you.”

“But, Mrs. Barrows,” remonstrated Willis, “why should I give up a seat to a lady when there were twenty other seats unoccupied on the same car?”

“There is no reason in the world why you should,” replied Mrs. Barrows. “But it was not until last winter that I discovered the trick that had been put upon us.”

“Ah?” said Willis. “Trick?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Barrows. “It was a trick. The car was empty to your eyes, but crowded to mine with the astral bodies of the members of the Boston Theosophical Society.”

“Wha-a-at?” roared Willis.

“It is just as I have said,” replied Mrs. Barrows, with a silvery laugh. “They are all great friends of my husband’s, and one night last winter he dined them at our house, and who do you suppose walked in first?”

“Madame Blavatsky’s ghost?” suggested Willis, with a grin.

“Not quite,” returned Mrs. Barrows. “But the horrible stranger of the horse-car; and, do you know, he recalled the whole thing to my mind, assuring me that he and the others had projected their astral bodies over to New York for a week, and had a magnificent time unperceived by all save myself, who was unconsciously psychic, and so able to perceive them in their invisible forms.”

“It was a mean trick on me, Mrs. Barrows,” said Willis, ruefully, as soon as he had recovered sufficiently from his surprise to speak.

“Oh no,” she replied, with a repetition of her charming laugh, which rearoused in Willis’s breast all the regrets of a lost cause. “They didn’t intend it especially for you, anyhow.”

“Well,” said Willis, “I think they did. They were friends of your husband’s, and they wanted to ruin me.”

“Ruin you? And why should the friends of Mr. Barrows have wished to do that?” asked Mrs. Barrows, in astonishment.

“Because,” began Willis, slowly and softly—“because they probably knew that from the moment I met you, I—But that is a story with a disagreeable climax, Mrs. Barrows, so I shall not tell it. How do you like Boston?”

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The Literary Remains
of Thomas Bragdon

I was much pained one morning last winter on picking up a copy of the Times to note therein the announcement of the death of my friend Tom Bragdon, from a sudden attack of la grippe. The news stunned me. It was like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky, for I had not even heard that Tom was ill; indeed, we had parted not more than four days previously after a luncheon together, at which it was I who was the object of his sympathy because a severe cold prevented my enjoyment of the whitebait, the fillet, the cigar, and indeed of everything, not even excepting Bragdon’s conversation, which upon that occasion should have seemed more than usually enlivening, since he was in one of his most exuberant moods. His last words to me were, “Take care of yourself, Phil! I should hate to have you die, for force of habit is so strong with me that I shall forever continue to lunch with none but you, ordering two portions of everything, which I am sure I could not eat, and how wasteful that would be!” And now he had passed over the threshold into the valley, and I was left to mourn.

I had known Bragdon as a successful commission merchant for some ten or fifteen years, during which period of time we had been more or less intimate, particularly so in the last five years of his life, when we were drawn more closely together; I, attracted by the absolute genuineness of his character, his delightful fancy, and to my mind wonderful originality, for I never knew another like him; he, possibly by the fact that I was one of the very few who could entirely understand him, could sympathize with his peculiarities, which were many, and was always ready to enter into any one of his odd moods, and with quite as much spirit as he himself should display. It was an ideal friendship.

It had been our custom every summer to take what Bragdon called spirit trips together—that is to say, generally in the early spring, Bragdon and I would choose some out-of-the-way corner of the world for exploration; we would each read all the literature that we could find concerning the chosen locality, saturate our minds with the spirit, atmosphere, and history of the place, and then in August, boarding a small schooner-rigged boat belonging to Bragdon, we would cruise about the Long Island Sound or sail up and down the Hudson River for a week, where, tabooing all other subjects, we would tell each other all that we had been able to discover concerning the place we had decided upon for our imaginary visit.

In this way we became tolerably familiar with several places of interest which neither of us had ever visited, and which, in my case, financial limitations, and in Bragdon’s, lack of time, were likely always to prevent our seeing. As I remember the matter, this plan was Bragdon’s own, and its first suggestion by him was received by me with a smile of derision; but the quaintness of the idea in time won me over, and after the first trial, when we made a spirit trip to Beloochistan, I was so fascinated by my experience that I eagerly looked forward to a second in the series, and was always thereafter only too glad to bear my share of the trouble and expense of our annual journeyings. In this manner we had practically circumnavigated this world and one or two of the planets; for, content as we were to visit unseen countries in spirit only, we were never hampered by the ordinary limitations of travel, and where books failed to supply us with information the imagination was called into play. The universe was open to us at the expense of a captain for our sharpie, canned provisions for a week, and a moderate consumption of gray matter in the conjuring up of scenes with which neither ourselves nor others were familiar. The trips were refreshing always, and in the case of our spirit journey through Italy, which at that time neither of us had visited, but which I have since had the good fortune to see in the fullness of her beauty, I found it to be far more delightful than the reality.

“We’ll go in,” said Bragdon, when he proposed the Italian tour, “by the St. Gothard route, the description of which I will prepare in detail myself. You can take the lakes, rounding up with Como. I will follow with the trip from Como to Milan, and Milan shall be my care. You can do Verona and Padua; I Venice. Then we can both try our hands at Rome and Naples; in the latter place, to save time, I will take Pompeii, you Capri. Thence we can hark back to Rome, thence to Pisa, Genoa, and Turin, giving a day to Siena and some of the quaint Etruscan towns, passing out by the Mont Cenis route from Turin to Geneva. If you choose you can take a run along the Riviera and visit Monte Carlo. For my own part, though, I’d prefer not to do that, because it brings a sensational element into the trip which I don’t particularly care for. You’d have to gamble, and if your imagination is to have full play you ought to lose all your money, contemplate suicide, and all that. I don’t think the results would be worth the mental strain you’d have to go through, and I certainly should not enjoy hearing about it. The rest of the trip, though, we can do easily in five days, which will leave us two for fishing, if we feel so disposed. They say the blue-fish are biting like the devil this year.”

I regret now that we did not include a stenographer among the necessaries of our spirit trips, for, as I look back upon that Italian tour, it was well worthy of preservation in book form, particularly Bragdon’s contributions, which were so delightfully imaginative that I cannot but rejoice that he did not live to visit the scenes of which he so eloquently spoke to me upon that occasion. The reality, I fear, would have been a sore disappointment to him, particularly in relation to Venice, concerning which his notions were vaguely suggestive of an earthly floating paradise.

“Ah, Philip,” he said, as we cast anchor one night in a little inlet near Milford, Connecticut, “I shall never forget Venice. This,” he added, waving his hand over the silvery surface of the moonlit water—“this reminds me of it. All is so still, so romantic, so beautiful. I arrived late at night, and my first sensations were those of a man who has entered a city of the dead. The bustle, the noise and clatter, of a great city were absent; nothing was there but the massive buildings rising up out of the still, peaceful waters like gigantic tombs, and as my gondolier guided the sombre black craft to which I had confided my safety and that of my valise, gliding in and out along those dark unlit streams, a great wave of melancholy swept over me, and then, passing from the minor streets into the Grand Canal, the melancholy was dispelled by the brilliant scene that met my eyes—great floods of light coming from everywhere, the brilliance of each ray reenforced by its reflection in the silent river over which I was speeding. It was like a glimpse of paradise, and when I reached my palace I was loath to leave the gondola, for I really felt as though I could glide along in that way through all eternity.”

“You lived in a palace in Venice?” I asked, somewhat amused at the magnificence of this imaginary tour.

“Certainly. Why not?” he replied. “I could not bring myself to staying in a hotel, Phil, in Venice. Venice is of a past age, when hotels were not, and to be thoroughly en rapport with my surroundings, I took up my abode in a palace, as I have said. It was on one of the side streets, to be sure, but it was yet a palace, and a beautiful one. And that street! It was a rivulet of beauty, in which could be seen myriads of golden-hued fish at play, which as the gondola passed to and fro would flirt into hiding until the intruder had passed out of sight in the Grand Canal, after which they would come slowly back again to render the silver waters almost golden with their brilliance.”

“Weren’t you rather extravagant, Tom?” I asked. “Palaces are costly, are they not?”

“Oh no,” he replied, with as much gravity as though he had really taken the trip and was imparting information to a seeker after knowledge. “It was not extravagant when you consider that anything in Venice in the way of a habitable house is called a palace, and that there are no servants to be tipped; that your lights, candles all, cost you first price only, and not the profit of the landlord, plus that of the concierge, plus that of the maid, plus several other small but aggravatingly augmentative sums which make your hotel bills seem like highway robbery. No, living in a palace, on the whole, is cheaper than living in a hotel; incidentals are less numerous and not so costly; and then you are so independent. Mine was a particularly handsome structure. I believe I have a picture of it here.”

Here Bragdon fumbled in his satchel for a moment, and then dragged forth a small unmounted photograph of a Venetian street scene, and, pointing out an ornate structure at the left of the picture, assured me that that was his palace, though he had forgotten the name of it.

“By-the-way,” he said, “let me say parenthetically that I think our foreign trips will have a far greater vraisemblance if we heighten the illusion with a few photographs, don’t you? They cost about a quarter apiece at Blank’s, in Twenty-third Street.”

“A good idea that,” I answered, amused at the thoroughness with which Bragdon was “doing” Venice. “We can remember what we haven’t seen so very much more easily.”

“Yes,” Bragdon said, “and besides, they’ll keep us from exaggeration.”

And then he went on to tell me of his month in Venice; how he chartered a gondola for the whole of his stay there from a handsome romantic Venetian youth, whose name was on a card Tom had had printed for the occasion, reading:

GIUSEPPE ZOCCO
Gondolas at all Hours
Cor. Grand Canal and Garibaldi St.

“Giuseppe was a character,” Bragdon said. “One of the remnants of a bygone age. He could sing like a bird, and at night he used to bring his friends around to the front of my palace and hitch up to one of the piles that were driven beside my doorstep, and there they’d sing their soft Italian melodies for me by the hour. It was better than Italian opera, and only cost me ten dollars for the whole season.”

“And did this Giuseppe speak English, Tom?” I queried, “or did you speak Italian? I am curious to know how you got on together in a conversational sense.”

“That is a point, my dear Phil,” Bragdon replied, “that I have never decided. I have looked at it from every point of view, and it has baffled me. I have asked myself the question, which would be the more likely, that Giuseppe should speak English, or that I should speak Italian? It has seemed to me that the latter would be the better way, for, all things considered, an American produce-broker is more likely to be familiar with the Italian tongue than a Venetian gondola-driver with the English. On the other hand, we want our accounts of these trips to seem truthful, and you know that I am not familiar with Italian, and we do not either of us know that a possible Zocco would not be a fluent speaker of English. To be honest with you, I will say that I had hoped you would not ask the question.”

“Well,” I answered, “I’ll withdraw it. As this is only a spirit trip we can each decide the point as it seems best to us.”

“I think that is the proper plan,” he said, and then, proceeding with his story, he described to me the marvelous paintings that adorned the walls of his palace; how he had tried to propel a gondola himself, and got a fall into the “deliciously tepid waters of the canal,” as he called them, for his pains; and it seemed very real, so minute were the details into which he entered.

But the height of Bragdon’s realism in telling his story of Venice was reached when, diving down into the innermost recesses of his vest pocket, he brought forth a silver filigree effigy of a gondola, which he handed me with the statement that it was for me.

“I got that in the plaza of St. Marc’s. I had visited the cathedral, inspected the mosaic flooring, taken a run to the top of the campanile, fed the pigeons, and was just about returning to the palace, when I thought of you, Phil, getting ready to do Rome with me, and I thought to myself ‘what a dear fellow he is!’ and, as I thought that, it occurred to me that I’d like you to know I had you in mind at the time, and so I stopped in one of those brilliant little shops on the plaza, where they keep everything they have in the windows, and bought that. It isn’t much, old fellow, but it’s for remembrance’ sake.”

I took it from him and pressed his hand affectionately, and for a moment, as the little sharpie rose and fell with the rising and falling of the slight undulating waves made by the passing up to anchorage of a small steam-tug, I almost believed that Tom had been to Venice. I still treasure the little filigree gondola, nor did I, when some years later I visited Venice, see there anything for which I would have exchanged that sweet token of remembrance.

Bragdon, as will already have been surmised by you who read, was more of a humorist than anything else, but the enthusiasm of his humor, its absolute spontaneity and kindliness, gave it at times a semblance to what might pass for true poetry. He was by disposition a thoroughly sweet spirit, and when I realized that he had gone before, and that the trips he and I had looked forward to with such almost boyish delight year by year were never more to be had, my eyes grew wet, and for a time I was disconsolate; and yet one week later I was laughing heartily at Bragdon.

He had appointed me, it was found when his will was read, his literary executor. I fairly roared with mirth to think of Bragdon’s having a literary executor, for, imaginative and humorous as he undoubtedly was, he had been so thoroughly identified in my mind with the produce business that I could scarcely bring myself to think of him in the light of a literary person. Indeed, he had always seemed to me to have an intolerance of literature. I had taken but half of a spirit trip with him when I discovered that he relied more upon his own imagination for facts of interest than upon what could be derived from books. He showed this trait no more strongly than when we came, upon this same Italian tour of which I have already written at some length, to do Rome together, for I then discovered how imaginary indeed the trips were from his point of view. What seemed to him as proper to be was, and neither history nor considerations of locality ever interfered with the things being as he desired them to be. Had it been otherwise he never would have endeavored to make me believe that he had stood upon the very spot in the Colosseum where Caesar addressed the Roman mob in impassioned words, exhorting them to resist the encroachment upon their liberties of the Pope!

At first it seemed to me that my late friend was indulging in a posthumous joke, and I paid his memory the compliment of seeing the point. But when, some days later, I received a note from his executors stating that they had found in the storeroom of Bragdon’s house a large packing-box full of papers and books, upon the cover of which was tacked a card bearing my address, I began to wonder whether or not, after all, the imagination of my dead friend had really led him to believe that he possessed literary ability.

I immediately sent word to the executors to have the box forwarded to me by express, and awaited its coming with no little interest, and, it must be confessed, with some anxiety; for I am apt to be depressed by the literary lucubrations of those of my friends who, devoid of the literary quality, do yet persist in writing, and for as long a time as I had known Bragdon I had never experienced through him any sensations save those of exhilaration, and I greatly feared a posthumous breaking of the spell. Poet in feeling as I thought him, I could hardly imagine a poem written by my friend, and while I had little doubt that I could live through the reading of a novel or short prose sketch from his pen, I was apprehensive as to the effect of a possible bit of verse.

It seemed to me, in short, that a poem by Bragdon, while it might easily show the poet’s fancy, could not fail to show also the produce-broker’s clumsiness of touch. His charm was the spontaneity of his spoken words, his enthusiastic personality disarming all criticism; what the labored productions of his fancy might prove to be, I hardly dared think. It was this dread that induced me, upon receipt of the box, appalling in its bulk and unpleasantly suggestive of the departure to other worlds of the original consignor, since it was long and deep like the outer oaken covering of a casket, to delay opening it for some days; but finally I nerved myself up to the duty that had devolved upon me, and opened the box.

It was full to overflowing with printed books in fine bindings, short tales in Bragdon’s familiar hand in copybooks, manuscripts almost without number, three Russia-leather record-books containing, the title-page told me, that which I most dreaded to find, The Poems of Thomas Bragdon, and dedicated to “His Dearest Friend”—myself. I had no heart to read beyond the dedication that night, but devoted all my time to getting the contents of the box into my library, having done which I felt it absolutely essential to my happiness to put on my coat, and, though the night was stormy, to rush out into the air. I think I should have suffocated in an open field with those literary remains of Thomas Bragdon heaped about me that night.

On my return I went immediately to bed, feeling by no means in the mood to read The Poems of Thomas Bragdon. I tossed about through the night, sleeping little, and in the morning rose up unrefreshed, and set about the examination of the papers and books intrusted to my care by my departed friend. And oh, the stuff I found there! If I was depressed at starting in, I was stupefied when it was all over, for the collection was mystifying to the point that it stunned.

In the first place, on opening Volume I. of the Poems of Thomas Bragdon, the first thing to greet my eyes were these lines:

CONSTANCY

Often have I heard it said

That her lips are ruby-red:

Little heed I what they say,

I have seen as red as they.

Ere she smiled on other men,

Real rubies were they then.

But now her lips are coy and cold;

To mine they ne’er reply;

And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye:

Her very frowns are fairer far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

As I read I was conscious of having seen the lines somewhere before, and yet I could not place them for the moment. They certainly possessed merit, so much so, in fact, that I marveled to think of their being Bragdon’s. I turned the leaves further and discovered this:

DISAPPOINTMENT

Come to me, O ye children,

For I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.

The Poem of the Universe

Nor rhythm has nor rhyme;

Some God recites the wondrous song,

A stanza at a time.

I dwell not now on what may be;

Night shadows o’er the scene;

But still my fancy wanders free

Through that which might have been.

Two stanzas in the poem, the first and the last, reminded me, as did the lines on “Constancy,” of something I had read before. In a moment I had placed the first as the opening lines of Longfellow’s “Children,” and a search through my books showed that the concluding verse was taken bodily from Peacock’s exquisite little poem “Castles in the Air.”

Despairing to solve the problem that now confronted me, which was, in brief, what Bragdon meant by bodily lifting stanzas from the poets and making them over into mosaics of his own, I turned from the poems and cast my eyes over some of the bound volumes in the box.

The first of these to come to hand was a copy of Hamlet, bound in tree calf, the sole lettering on the book being on the back, as follows:

HAMLET

Bragdon
~
New York

This I deemed a harmless bit of vanity, and not necessarily misleading, since many collectors of books see fit to have their own names emblazoned on the backs of their literary treasures; but pray imagine my horror upon opening the volume to discover that the name of William Shakespeare had been erased from the title-page, and that of Thomas Bragdon so carefully inserted that except to a practiced eye none would ever know that the page was not as it had always been. I must confess to some mirth when I read that title-page:

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
A Tragedy
By
THOMAS BRAGDON, ESQUIRE

The conceit was well worthy of my late friend in one of his most fanciful moods. In other volumes the same substitution had been made, so that to one not versed in literature it would have seemed as though “Thomas Bragdon, Esquire,” had been the author not only of Hamlet, but also of Vanity Fair, David Copperfield, Rienzi, and many other famous works, and I am not sure but that the great problem concerning the “Junius Letters” was here solved to the satisfaction of Bragdon, if not to my own. There were but two exceptions in the box to the rule of substituting the name of Bragdon for that of the actual author; one of these was an Old Testament, on the flyleaf of which Bragdon had written, “To my dear friend Bragdon,” and signed “The Author.” I think I should have laughed for hours over this delightful reminder of my late friend’s power of imagination had not the second exception come almost immediately to hand—a copy of Milton, which I recognized at once as one I had sent Tom at Christmas two years before his death, and on the flyleaf of which I had written, “To Thomas Bragdon, with the love of, his faithfully, Philip Marsden.” This was, indeed, a commonplace enough inscription, but it gathered unexpected force when I turned over a leaf and my eyes rested on the title, where Bragdon’s love of substitutes had led him to put my name where Milton’s had been.

The discovery was too much for my equanimity. I was thoroughly disconcerted, almost angry, and I felt, for the first time in my life, that there had been vagaries in Bragdon’s character with which I could not entirely sympathize; but in justice to myself, it must be said, these sentiments were induced by first thoughts only. Certainly there could be but one way in which Bragdon’s substitution of my name for Milton’s could prove injurious or offensive to me who was his friend, and that was by his putting that copy out before the world to be circulated at random, which avenue to my discomfiture he had effectually closed by leaving the book in my hands, to do with it whatsoever I pleased. Second thoughts showed me that it was only a fear of what the outsider might think that was responsible for my temporary disloyalty to my departed comrade’s memory, and then when I remembered how thoroughly we twain had despised the outsider, I was so ashamed of my aberration that I immediately renewed my allegiance to the late King Tom; so heartily, in fact, that my emotions well-nigh overcame me, and I found it best to seek distractions in the outer world.

I put on my hat and took a long walk along the Riverside Drive, the crisp air of the winter night proving a tonic to my disturbed system. It was after midnight when I returned to my apartment in a tolerably comfortable frame of mind, and yet as I opened the door to my study I was filled with a vague apprehension—of what I could not determine, but which events soon justified, for as I closed the door behind me, and turned up the light over my table, I became conscious of a pair of eyes fixed upon me. Nervously whirling about in my chair and glancing over towards my fireplace, I was for a moment transfixed with terror, for there, leaning against the mantel and gazing sadly into the fire, was Tom Bragdon himself—the man whom but a short time before I had seen lowered into his grave.

“Tom,” I cried, springing to my feet and rushing towards him—“Tom, what does this mean? Why have you come back from the spirit world to—to haunt me?”

As I spoke he raised his head slowly until his eyes rested full upon my own, whereupon he vanished, all save those eyes, which remained fixed upon mine, and filled with the soft, affectionate glow I had so often seen in them in life.

“Tom,” I cried again, holding out my hand towards him in a beseeching fashion, “come back. Explain this dreadful mystery if you do not wish me to lose my senses.”

And then the eyes faded from my sight, and I was alone again. Horrified by my experience, I rushed from the study into my bedroom, where I threw myself, groaning, upon my couch. To collect my scattered senses was of difficult performance, and when finally my agitated nerves did begin to assume a moderately normal state, they were set adrift once more by Tom’s voice, which was unmistakably plain, bidding me to come back to him there in the study. Fearful as I was of the results, I could not but obey, and I rose tremblingly from my bed and tottered back to my desk, to see Bragdon sitting opposite my usual place just as he had so often done when in the flesh.

“Phil,” he said in a moment, “don’t be afraid. I couldn’t hurt you if I would, and you know—or if you don’t know you ought to know—that to promote your welfare has always been the supremest of my desires. I have returned to you here tonight to explain my motive in making the alterations in those books, and to account for the peculiarities of those verses. We have known each other, my dear boy, how many years?”

“Fifteen, Tom,” I said, my voice husky with emotion.

“Yes, fifteen years, and fifteen happy years, Phil. Happy years to me, to whom the friendship of one who understood me was the dearest of many dear possessions. From the moment I met you I felt I had at last a friend, one to whom my very self might be confided, and who would through all time and under all circumstances prove true to that trust. It seemed to me that you were my soul’s twin, Phil, and as the years passed on and we grew closer to each other, when the rough corners of my nature adapted themselves to the curves of yours, I almost began to think that we were but one soul united in all things spiritual, two only in matters material. I never spoke of it to you; I thought of it in communion with myself; I never thought it necessary to speak of it to you, for I was satisfied that you knew. I did not realize until—until that night a fortnight since, when almost without warning I found myself on the threshold of the dark valley, that perhaps I was mistaken. I missed you, and so sudden was the attack, and so swiftly did the heralds of death intrude upon me, that I had no time to summon you, as I wished; and as I lay there upon my bed, to the watchers unconscious, it came to me, like a dash of cold water in my face, that after all we were not one, but in reality two; for had we been one, you would have known of the perilous estate of your other self, and would have been with me at the last. And, Phil, the realization that chilled my very soul, that showed me that what I most dearly loved to believe was founded in unreality, reconciled me to the journey I was about to take into other worlds, for I knew that should I recover, life could never seem quite the same to me.”

Here Bragdon, or his spirit, stopped speaking for a moment, and I tried to say something, but could not.

“I know how you feel, Phil,” said he, noticing my discomfiture, “for, though you are not so much a part of me that you thoroughly comprehend me, I have become so much a part of you that your innermost thoughts are as plain to me as though they were mine. But let me finish. I realized when I lay ill and about to die that I had permitted my theory of happiness to obscure my perception of the actual. As you know, my whole life has been given over to imagination—all save that portion of my existence, which I shall not dignify by calling life, when I was forced by circumstances to bring myself down to realities. I did not live whilst in commercial pursuits. It was only when I could leave business behind and travel in fancy wheresoever I wished that I was happy, and in those moments, Phil, I was full of aspiration to do those things for which nature had not fitted me, and to the extent that I recognized my inability to do those things I failed to be content. I should have liked to be a great writer, a poet, a great dramatist, a novelist—a little of everything in the literary world. I should have liked to know Shakespeare, to have been the friend of Milton; and when I came out of my dreams it made me unhappy to think that such I never could be, until one day this idea came to me: all the happiness of life is bound up in the ‘let’s pretend’ games which we learn in childhood, and no harm results to anyone. If I can imagine myself off with my friend Phil Marsden in the lakes of England and Scotland, in the African jungle, in the moon, anywhere, and enter so far into the spirit of the trips as to feel that they are real and not imagination, why may I not in fancy be all these things that I so aspire to be? Why may not the plays of Shakespeare become the plays of Thomas Bragdon? Why may not the poems of Milton become the poems of my dearest, closest friend Phil Marsden? What is to prevent my achieving the highest position in letters, art, politics, science, anything, in imagination? I acted upon the thought, and I found the plan worked admirably up to a certain point. It was easy to fancy myself the author of Hamlet, until I took my copy of that work in hand to read, and then it would shock and bring me back to earth again to see the name of another on the title-page. My solution of this vexatious complication was soon found. Surely, thought I, it can harm no one if I choose in behalf of my own conceit to substitute my name for that of Shakespeare, and I did so. The illusion was complete; indeed, it became no illusion, for my eyes did not deceive me. I saw what existed: the title-page of Hamlet by Thomas Bragdon. I carried the plan further, and where I found a piece of literature that I admired, there I made the substitution of my name for that of the real author, and in the case of that delightful copy of Milton you gave me, Phil, it pleased me to believe that it was presented to me by the author, only the inscription on the title-page made it necessary for me to foist upon you the burden or distinction of authorship. Then, as I lived on in my imaginary paradise, it struck me that for one who had done such great things in letters I was doing precious little writing, and I bethought me of a plan which a dreadful reality made all the more pleasing. I looked into literature to a slight extent, and I perceived at once that originality is no longer possible. The great thoughts have been thought; the great truths have been grasped and made clear; the great poems have been written. I saw that the literature of today is either an echo of the past or a combination of the ideas of many in the productions of the individual, and upon that basis I worked. My poems are combinations. I have taken a stanza from one poet, and combining it with a stanza from another, have made the resulting poem my own, and in so far as I have made no effort to profit thereby I have been clear in my conscience. No one has been deceived but myself, though I saw with some regret this evening when you read my lines that you were puzzled by them. I had believed that you understood me sufficiently to comprehend them.”

Here my ghostly visitor paused a moment and sighed. I felt as though some explanation of my lack of comprehension early in the evening was necessary, and so I said:

“I should have understood you, Tom, and I do now, but I have not the strength of imagination that you have.”

“You are wrong there, Phil,” said he. “You have every bit as strong an imagination as I, but you do not keep it in form. You do not exercise it enough. How have you developed your muscles? By constant exercise. The imagination needs to be kept in play quite as much as the muscles, if we do not wish it to become flabby as the muscles become when neglected. That your imagination is a strong one is shown by my presence before you tonight. In reality, Phil, I am lying out there in Greenwood, cold in my grave. Your imagination places me here, and as applied to my books, the play of Hamlet by Thomas Bragdon, and my poems, they will also demonstrate to you the strength of your fancy if you will show them, say, to your janitor, tomorrow morning. Try it, Phil, and see; but this is only a part, my boy, of what I have come here to say to you. I am here, in the main, to show you that throughout all eternity happiness may be ours if we but take advantage of our fancy. Do you take delight in my society? Imagine me present, Phil, and I will be present. There need be no death for us, there need be no separation throughout all the years to come, if you but exercise your fancy in life, and when life on this earth ends, then shall we be reunited according to nature’s laws. Good night, Phil. It is late; and while I could sit here and talk forever without weariness, you, who have yet to put off your mortal limitations, will be worn out if I remain longer.”

We shook hands affectionately, and Bragdon vanished as unceremoniously as he had appeared. For an hour after his departure I sat reflecting over the strange events of the evening, and finally, worn out in body and mind, dropped off into sleep. When I awakened it was late in the forenoon, and I was surprised when I recalled all that I had gone through to feel a sense of exhilaration. I was certainly thoroughly rested, and cares which had weighed rather heavily on me in the past now seemed light and inconsiderable. My apartments never looked so attractive, and on my table, to my utter surprise and delight, I saw several objects of art, notably a Baryé bronze, that it had been one of my most cherished hopes to possess. Where they came from I singularly enough did not care to discover; suffice it to say that they have remained there ever since, nor have I been at all curious to know to whose generosity I owe them, though when that afternoon I followed Bragdon’s advice, and showed his book of poems and the volume of Hamlet to the janitor, a vague notion as to how matters really stood entered my mind. The janitor cast his eye over the leather-covered book of poems when I asked what he thought of it.

“Nothin’ much,” he said. “You goin’ to keep a diary?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Why, when I sees people with handsome blank books like that I allus supposes that’s their object.”

Blank book indeed! And yet, perhaps, he was not wrong. I did not question it, but handed him the Bragdon Hamlet.

“Read that page aloud to me,” I said, indicating the title-page and turning my back upon him, almost dreading to hear him speak.

“Certainly, if you wish it; but aren’t you feeling well this morning, Mr. Marsden?”

“Very,” I replied, shortly. “Go on and read.”

“Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” he read, in a halting sort of fashion.

“Yes, yes; and what else?” I cried, impatiently.

“A Tragedy by William Shak—”

That was enough for me. I understood Tom, and at last I understood myself. I grasped the book from the janitor’s hands, rather roughly, I fear, and bade him begone.

The happiest period of my life has elapsed since then. I understand that some of my friends profess to believe me queer; but I do not care. I am content.

The world is practically mine, and Bragdon and I are always together.

~

Ghosts I Have Met
AND SOME OTHERS

CONTENTS:

Ghosts that Have Haunted Me
The Mystery of My Grandmother’s Hair Sofa
The Mystery of Barney O’Rourke
The Exorcism that Failed
Thurlow’s Christmas Story
The Dampmere Mystery
Carleton Barker, First and Second

«

»

Ghosts That Have
Haunted Me

A FEW SPIRIT REMINISCENCES

If we could only get used to the idea that ghosts are perfectly harmless creatures, who are powerless to affect our well-being unless we assist them by giving way to our fears, we should enjoy the supernatural exceedingly, it seems to me. Coleridge, I think it was, was once asked by a lady if he believed in ghosts, and he replied, “No, madame; I have seen too many of them.” Which is my case exactly. I have seen so many horrid visitants from other worlds that they hardly affect me at all, so far as the mere inspiration of terror is concerned. On the other hand, they interest me hugely; and while I must admit that I do experience all the purely physical sensations that come from horrific encounters of this nature, I can truly add in my own behalf that mentally I can rise above the physical impulse to run away, and, invariably standing my ground, I have gained much useful information concerning them. I am prepared to assert that if a thing with flashing green eyes, and clammy hands, and long, dripping strips of seaweed in place of hair, should rise up out of the floor before me at this moment, 2 a.m., and nobody in the house but myself, with a fearful, nerve-destroying storm raging outside, I should without hesitation ask it to sit down and light a cigar and state its business—or, if it were of the female persuasion, to join me in a bottle of sarsaparilla—although every physical manifestation of fear of which my poor body is capable would be present. I have had experiences in this line which, if I could get you to believe them, would convince you that I speak the truth. Knowing weak, suspicious human nature as I do, however, I do not hope ever to convince you—though it is nonetheless true—that on one occasion, in the spring of 1895, there was a spiritual manifestation in my library which nearly prostrated me physically, but which mentally I hugely enjoyed, because I was mentally strong enough to subdue my physical repugnance for the thing which suddenly and without any apparent reason materialized in my armchair.

I’m going to tell you about it briefly, though I warn you in advance that you will find it a great strain upon your confidence in my veracity. It may even shatter that confidence beyond repair; but I cannot help that. I hold that it is a man’s duty in this life to give to the world the benefit of his experience. All that he sees he should set down exactly as he sees it, and so simply, withal, that to the dullest comprehension the moral involved shall be perfectly obvious. If he is a painter, and an auburn-haired maiden appears to him to have blue hair, he should paint her hair blue, and just so long as he sticks by his principles and is true to himself, he need not bother about what you may think of him. So it is with me. My scheme of living is based upon being true to myself. You may class me with Baron Munchausen if you choose; I shall not mind so long as I have the consolation of feeling, deep down in my heart, that I am a true realist, and diverge not from the paths of truth as truth manifests itself to me.

This intruder of whom I was just speaking, the one that took possession of my armchair in the spring of 1895, was about as horrible a specter as I have ever had the pleasure to have haunt me. It was worse than grotesque. It grated on every nerve. Alongside of it the ordinary poster of the present day would seem to be as accurate in drawing as a bicycle map, and in its coloring it simply shrieked with discord.

If color had tones which struck the ear, instead of appealing to the eye, the thing would have deafened me. It was about midnight when the manifestation first took shape. My family had long before retired, and I had just finished smoking a cigar—which was one of a thousand which my wife had bought for me at a Monday sale at one of the big department stores in New York. I don’t remember the brand, but that is just as well—it was not a cigar to be advertised in a civilized piece of literature—but I do remember that they came in bundles of fifty, tied about with blue ribbon. The one I had been smoking tasted and burned as if it had been rolled by a Cuban insurrectionist while fleeing from a Spanish regiment through a morass, gathering its component parts as he ran. It had two distinct merits, however. No man could possibly smoke too many of them, and they were economical, which is how the ever-helpful little madame came to get them for me, and I have no doubt they will someday prove very useful in removing insects from the rosebushes. They cost $3.99 a thousand on five days a week, but at the Monday sale they were marked down to $1.75, which is why my wife, to whom I had recently read a little lecture on economy, purchased them for me. Upon the evening in question I had been at work on this cigar for about two hours, and had smoked one side of it three-quarters of the way down to the end, when I concluded that I had smoked enough—for one day—so I rose up to cast the other side into the fire, which was flickering fitfully in my spacious fireplace.

This done, I turned about, and there, fearful to see, sat this thing grinning at me from the depths of my chair. My hair not only stood on end, but tugged madly in an effort to get away. Four hairs—I can prove the statement if it be desired—did pull themselves loose from my scalp in their insane desire to rise above the terrors of the situation, and, flying upward, stuck like nails into the oak ceiling directly over my head, whence they had to be pulled the next morning with nippers by our hired man, who would no doubt testify to the truth of the occurrence as I have asserted it if he were still living, which, unfortunately, he is not. Like most hired men, he was subject to attacks of lethargy, from one of which he died last summer. He sank into a rest about weed-time, last June, and lingered quietly along for two months, and after several futile efforts to wake him up, we finally disposed of him to our town crematory for experimental purposes. I am told he burned very actively, and I believe it, for to my certain knowledge he was very dry, and not so green as some persons who had previously employed him affected to think. A cold chill came over me as my eye rested upon the horrid visitor and noted the greenish depths of his eyes and the claw-like formation of his fingers, and my flesh began to creep like an inchworm. At one time I was conscious of eight separate corrugations on my back, and my arms goose-fleshed until they looked like one of those miniature plaster casts of the Alps which are so popular in Swiss summer resorts; but mentally I was not disturbed at all. My repugnance was entirely physical, and, to come to the point at once, I calmly offered the specter a cigar, which it accepted, and demanded a light. I gave it, nonchalantly lighting the match upon the goose-fleshing of my wrist.

Now I admit that this was extraordinary and hardly credible, yet it happened exactly as I have set it down, and, furthermore, I enjoyed the experience. For three hours the thing and I conversed, and not once during that time did my hair stop pulling away at my scalp, or the repugnance cease to run in great rolling waves up and down my back. If I wished to deceive you, I might add that pin-feathers began to grow from the goose-flesh, but that would be a lie, and lying and I are not friends, and, furthermore, this paper is not written to amaze, but to instruct.

Except for its personal appearance, this particular ghost was not very remarkable, and I do not at this time recall any of the details of our conversation beyond the point that my share of it was not particularly coherent, because of the discomfort attendant upon the fearful hair-pulling process I was going through. I merely cite its coming to prove that, with all the outward visible signs of fear manifesting themselves in no uncertain manner, mentally I was cool enough to cope with the visitant, and sufficiently calm and at ease to light the match upon my wrist, perceiving for the first time, with an Edison-like ingenuity, one of the uses to which goose-flesh might be put, and knowing full well that if I tried to light it on the sole of my shoe I should have fallen to the ground, my knees being too shaky to admit of my standing on one leg even for an instant. Had I been mentally overcome, I should have tried to light the match on my foot, and fallen ignominiously to the floor then and there.

There was another ghost that I recall to prove my point, who was of very great use to me in the summer immediately following the spring of which I have just told you. You will possibly remember how that the summer of 1895 had rather more than its fair share of heat, and that the lovely New Jersey town in which I have the happiness to dwell appeared to be the headquarters of the temperature. The thermometers of the nation really seemed to take orders from Beachdale, and properly enough, for our town is a born leader in respect to heat. Having no property to sell, I candidly admit that Beachdale is not of an arctic nature in summer, except socially, perhaps. Socially, it is the coolest town in the State; but we are at this moment not discussing cordiality, fraternal love, or the question raised by the Declaration of Independence as to whether all men are born equal. The warmth we have in hand is what the old lady called “Fahrenheat,” and, from a thermometric point of view, Beachdale, if I may be a trifle slangy, as I sometimes am, has heat to burn. There are mitigations of this heat, it is true, but they generally come along in winter.

I must claim, in behalf of my town, that never in all my experience have I known a summer so hot that it was not, sooner or later—by January, anyhow—followed by a cool spell. But in the summer of 1895 even the real-estate agents confessed that the cold wave announced by the weather bureau at Washington summered elsewhere—in the tropics, perhaps, but not at Beachdale. One hardly dared take a bath in the morning for fear of being scalded by the fluid that flowed from the cold-water faucet—our reservoir is entirely unprotected by shade-trees, and in summer a favorite spot for young Waltons who like to catch bass already boiled—my neighbors and myself lived on cracked ice, ice-cream, and destructive cold drinks. I do not myself mind hot weather in the daytime, but hot nights are killing. I can’t sleep. I toss about for hours, and then, for the sake of variety, I flop, but sleep cometh not. My debts double, and my income seems to sizzle away under the influence of a hot, sleepless night; and it was just here that a certain awful thing saved me from the insanity which is a certain result of parboiled insomnia.

It was about the 16th of July, which, as I remember reading in an extra edition of the Evening Bun, got out to mention the fact, was the hottest 16th of July known in thirty-eight years. I had retired at half-past seven, after dining lightly upon a cold salmon and a gallon of iced tea—not because I was tired, but because I wanted to get down to first principles at once, and remove my clothing, and sort of spread myself over all the territory I could, which is a thing you can’t do in a library, or even in a white-and-gold parlor. If man were constructed like a machine, as he really ought to be, to be strictly comfortable—a machine that could be taken apart like an eight-day clock—I should have taken myself apart, putting one section of myself on the roof, another part in the spare room, hanging a third on the clothesline in the yard, and so on, leaving my head in the icebox; but unfortunately we have to keep ourselves together in this life, hence I did the only thing one can do, and retired, and incidentally spread myself over some freshly baked bed-clothing. There was some relief from the heat, but not much. I had been roasting, and while my sensations were somewhat like those which I imagine come to a planked shad when he first finds himself spread out over the plank, there was a mitigation. My temperature fell off from 167 to about 163, which is not quite enough to make a man absolutely content. Suddenly, however, I began to shiver. There was no breeze, but I began to shiver.

“It is getting cooler,” I thought, as the chill came on, and I rose and looked at the thermometer. It still registered the highest possible point, and the mercury was rebelliously trying to break through the top of the glass tube and take a stroll on the roof.

“That’s queer,” I said to myself. “It’s as hot as ever, and yet I’m shivering. I wonder if my goose is cooked? I’ve certainly got a chill.”

I jumped back into bed and pulled the sheet up over me; but still I shivered. Then I pulled the blanket up, but the chill continued. I couldn’t seem to get warm again. Then came the counterpane, and finally I had to put on my bathrobe—a fuzzy woolen affair, which in midwinter I had sometimes found too warm for comfort. Even then I was not sufficiently bundled up, so I called for an extra blanket, two afghans, and the hot-water bag.

Everybody in the house thought I had gone mad, and I wondered myself if perhaps I hadn’t, when all of a sudden I perceived, off in the corner, the Awful Thing, and perceiving it, I knew all.

I was being haunted, and the physical repugnance of which I have spoken was on. The cold shiver, the invariable accompaniment of the ghostly visitant, had come, and I assure you I never was so glad of anything in my life. It has always been said of me by my critics that I am raw; I was afraid that after that night they would say I was half baked, and I would far rather be the one than the other; and it was the Awful Thing that saved me. Realizing this, I spoke to it gratefully.

“You are a heaven-born gift on a night like this,” said I, rising up and walking to its side.

“I am glad to be of service to you,” the Awful Thing replied, smiling at me so yellowly that I almost wished the author of the Blue-Button of Cowardice could have seen it.

“It’s very good of you,” I put in.

“Not at all,” replied the Thing; “you are the only man I know who doesn’t think it necessary to prevaricate about ghosts every time he gets an order for a Christmas story. There have been more lies told about us than about any other class of things in existence, and we are getting a trifle tired of it. We may have lost our corporeal existence, but some of our sensitiveness still remains.”

“Well,” said I, rising and lighting the gas-logs—for I was on the very verge of congealment—“I am sure I am pleased if you like my stories.”

“Oh, as for that, I don’t think much of them,” said the Awful Thing, with a purple display of candor which amused me, although I cannot say that I relished it; “but you never lie about us. You are not at all interesting, but you are truthful, and we spooks hate libelers. Just because one happens to be a thing is no reason why writers should libel it, and that’s why I have always respected you. We regard you as a sort of spook Boswell. You may be dull and stupid, but you tell the truth, and when I saw you in imminent danger of becoming a mere grease spot, owing to the fearful heat, I decided to help you through. That’s why I’m here. Go to sleep now. I’ll stay here and keep you shivering until daylight anyhow. I’d stay longer, but we are always laid at sunrise.”

“Like an egg,” I said, sleepily.

“Tutt!” said the ghost. “Go to sleep, If you talk I’ll have to go.”

And so I dropped off to sleep as softly and as sweetly as a tired child. In the morning I awoke refreshed. The rest of my family were prostrated, but I was fresh. The Awful Thing was gone, and the room was warming up again; and if it had not been for the tinkling ice in my water-pitcher, I should have suspected it was all a dream.

And so throughout the whole sizzling summer the friendly specter stood by me and kept me cool, and I haven’t a doubt that it was because of his good offices in keeping me shivering on those fearful August nights that I survived the season, and came to my work in the autumn as fit as a fiddle—so fit, indeed, that I have not written a poem since that has not struck me as being the very best of its kind, and if I can find a publisher who will take the risk of putting those poems out, I shall unequivocally and without hesitation acknowledge, as I do here, my debt of gratitude to my friends in the spirit world.

Manifestations of this nature, then, are harmful, as I have already observed, only when the person who is haunted yields to his physical impulses. Fought stubbornly inch by inch with the will, they can be subdued, and often they are a boon. I think I have proved both these points. It took me a long time to discover the facts, however, and my discovery came about in this way. It may perhaps interest you to know how I made it. I encountered at the English home of a wealthy friend at one time a “presence” of an insulting turn of mind. It was at my friend Jarley’s little baronial hall, which he had rented from the Earl of Brokedale the year Mrs. Jarley was presented at court. The Countess of Brokedale’s social influence went with the château for a slightly increased rental, which was why the Jarleys took it. I was invited to spend a month with them, not so much because Jarley is fond of me as because Mrs. Jarley had a sort of an idea that, as a writer, I might say something about their newly acquired glory in some American Sunday newspaper; and Jarley laughingly assigned to me the “haunted chamber,” without at least one of which no baronial hall in the old country is considered worthy of the name.

“It will interest you more than any other,” Jarley said; “and if it has a ghost, I imagine you will be able to subdue him.”

I gladly accepted the hospitality of my friend, and was delighted at his consideration in giving me the haunted chamber, where I might pursue my investigations into the subject of phantoms undisturbed. Deserting London, then, for a time, I ran down to Brokedale Hall, and took up my abode there with a half-dozen other guests. Jarley, as usual since his sudden “gold-fall,” as Wilkins called it, did everything with a lavish hand. I believe a man could have got diamonds on toast if he had chosen to ask for them. However, this is apart from my story.

I had occupied the haunted chamber about two weeks before anything of importance occurred, and then it came—and a more unpleasant, ill-mannered spook never floated in the ether. He materialized about 3 a.m. and was unpleasantly sulphurous to one’s perceptions. He sat upon the divan in my room, holding his knees in his hands, leering and scowling upon me as though I were the intruder, and not he.

“Who are you?” I asked, excitedly, as in the dying light of the log fire he loomed grimly up before me.

“None of your business,” he replied, insolently, showing his teeth as he spoke. “On the other hand, who are you? This is my room, and not yours, and it is I who have the right to question. If you have any business here, well and good. If not, you will oblige me by removing yourself, for your presence is offensive to me.”

“I am a guest in the house,” I answered, restraining my impulse to throw the inkstand at him for his impudence. “And this room has been set apart for my use by my host.”

“One of the servant’s guests, I presume?” he said, insultingly, his lividly lavender-like lip upcurling into a haughty sneer, which was maddening to a self-respecting worm like myself.

I rose up from my bed, and picked up the poker to bat him over the head, but again I restrained myself. It will not do to quarrel, I thought. I will be courteous if he is not, thus giving a dead Englishman a lesson which wouldn’t hurt some of the living.

“No,” I said, my voice tremulous with wrath—“no; I am the guest of my friend Mr. Jarley, an American, who—”

“Same thing,” observed the intruder, with a yellow sneer. “Race of low-class animals, those Americans—only fit for gentlemen’s stables, you know.”

This was too much. A ghost may insult me with impunity, but when he tackles my people he must look out for himself. I sprang forward with an ejaculation of wrath, and with all my strength struck at him with the poker, which I still held in my hand. If he had been anything but a ghost, he would have been split vertically from top to toe; but as it was, the poker passed harmlessly through his misty makeup, and rent a great gash two feet long in Jarley’s divan. The yellow sneer faded from his lips, and a maddening blue smile took its place.

“Humph!” he observed, nonchalantly. “What a useless ebullition, and what a vulgar display of temper! Really you are the most humorous insect I have yet encountered. From what part of the States do you come? I am truly interested to know in what kind of soil exotics of your peculiar kind are cultivated. Are you part of the fauna or the flora of your tropical States—or what?”

And then I realized the truth. There is no physical method of combating a ghost which can result in his discomfiture, so I resolved to try the intellectual. It was a mind-to-mind contest, and he was easy prey after I got going. I joined him in his blue smile, and began to talk about the English aristocracy; for I doubted not, from the specter’s manner, that he was or had been one of that class. He had about him that haughty lack of manners which bespoke the aristocrat. I waxed very eloquent when, as I say, I got my mind really going. I spoke of kings and queens and their uses in no uncertain phrases, of divine right, of dukes, earls, marquises—of all the pompous establishments of British royalty and nobility—with that contemptuously humorous tolerance of a necessary and somewhat amusing evil which we find in American comic papers. We had a battle royal for about one hour, and I must confess he was a foeman worthy of any man’s steel, so long as I was reasonable in my arguments; but when I finally observed that it wouldn’t be ten years before Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth had the whole lot engaged for the New York circus season, stalking about the Madison Square Garden arena, with the Prince of Wales at the head beating a tom-tom, he grew iridescent with wrath, and fled madly through the wainscoting of the room.

It was purely a mental victory. All the physical possibilities of my being would have exhausted themselves futilely before him; but when I turned upon him the resources of my fancy, my imagination unrestrained, and held back by no sense of responsibility, he was as a child in my hands, obstreperous but certain to be subdued. If it were not for Mrs. Jarley’s wrath—which, I admit, she tried to conceal—over the damage to her divan, I should now look back upon that visitation as the most agreeable haunting experience of my life; at any rate, it was at that time that I first learned how to handle ghosts, and since that time I have been able to overcome them without trouble—save in one instance, with which I shall close this chapter of my reminiscences, and which I give only to prove the necessity of observing strictly one point in dealing with specters.

It happened last Christmas, in my own home. I had provided as a little surprise for my wife a complete new solid silver service marked with her initials. The tree had been prepared for the children, and all had retired save myself. I had lingered later than the others to put the silver service under the tree, where its happy recipient would find it when she went to the tree with the little ones the next morning. It made a magnificent display: the two dozen of each kind of spoon, the forks, the knives, the coffeepot, water-urn, and all; the salvers, the vegetable-dishes, olive-forks, cheese-scoops, and other dazzling attributes of a complete service, not to go into details, presented a fairly scintillating picture which would have made me gasp if I had not, at the moment when my own breath began to catch, heard another gasp in the corner immediately behind me. Turning about quickly to see whence it came, I observed a dark figure in the pale light of the moon which streamed in through the window.

“Who are you?” I cried, starting back, the physical symptoms of a ghostly presence manifesting themselves as usual.

“I am the ghost of one long gone before,” was the reply, in sepulchral tones.

I breathed a sigh of relief, for I had for a moment feared it was a burglar.

“Oh!” I said. “You gave me a start at first. I was afraid you were a material thing come to rob me.” Then turning towards the tree, I observed, with a wave of the hand, “Fine lay out, eh?”

“Beautiful,” he said, hollowly. “Yet not so beautiful as things I’ve seen in realms beyond your ken.”

And then he set about telling me of the beautiful gold and silver ware they used in the Elysian Fields, and I must confess Monte Cristo would have had a hard time, with Sindbad the Sailor to help, to surpass the picture of royal magnificence the specter drew. I stood inthralled until, even as he was talking, the clock struck three, when he rose up, and moving slowly across the floor, barely visible, murmured regretfully that he must be off, with which he faded away down the back stairs. I pulled my nerves, which were getting rather strained, together again, and went to bed.

Next morning every bit of that silverware was gone; and, what is more, three weeks later I found the ghost’s picture in the Rogues’ Gallery in New York as that of the cleverest sneak-thief in the country.

All of which, let me say to you, dear reader, in conclusion, proves that when you are dealing with ghosts you mustn’t give up all your physical resources until you have definitely ascertained that the thing by which you are confronted, horrid or otherwise, is a ghost, and not an all too material rogue with a light step, and a commodious jute bag for plunder concealed beneath his coat.

“How to tell a ghost?” you ask.

Well, as an eminent master of fiction frequently observes in his writings, “that is another story,” which I shall hope someday to tell for your instruction and my own aggrandizement.

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The Mystery of
My Grandmother’s Hair Sofa

It happened last Christmas Eve, and precisely as I am about to set it forth. It has been said by critics that I am a romancer of the wildest sort, but that is where my critics are wrong. I grant that the experiences through which I have passed, some of which have contributed to the gray matter in my hair, however little they may have augmented that within my cranium—experiences which I have from time to time set forth to the best of my poor abilities in the columns of such periodicals as I have at my mercy—have been of an order so excessively supernatural as to give my critics a basis for their aspersions; but they do not know, as I do, that that basis is as uncertain as the shifting sands of the sea, inasmuch as in the setting forth of these episodes I have narrated them as faithfully as the most conscientious realist could wish, and am therefore myself a true and faithful follower of the realistic school. I cannot be blamed because these things happen to me. If I sat down in my study to imagine the strange incidents to which I have in the past called attention, with no other object in view than to make my readers unwilling to retire for the night, to destroy the peace of mind of those who are good enough to purchase my literary wares, or to titillate till tense the nerve tissue of the timid who come to smile and who depart unstrung, then should I deserve the severest condemnation; but these things I do not do. I have a mission in life which I hold as sacred as my good friend Mr. Howells holds his. Such phases of life as I see I put down faithfully, and if the Fates in their wisdom have chosen to make of me the Balzac of the Supernatural, the Shakespeare of the Midnight Visitation, while elevating Mr. Howells to the high office of the Fielding of Massachusetts and its adjacent States, the Smollett of Boston, and the Sterne of Altruria, I can only regret that the powers have dealt more graciously with him than with me, and walk my little way as gracefully as I know how. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune I am prepared to suffer in all meekness of spirit; I accept them because it seems to me to be nobler in the mind so to do rather than by opposing to end them. And so to my story. I have prefaced it at such length for but one reason, and that is that I am aware that there will be those who will doubt the veracity of my tale, and I am anxious at the outset to impress upon all the unquestioned fact that what I am about to tell is the plain, unvarnished truth, and, as I have already said, it happened last Christmas Eve.

I regret to have to say so, for it sounds so much like the description given to other Christmas Eves by writers with a less conscientious regard for the truth than I possess, but the facts must be told, and I must therefore state that it was a wild and stormy night. The winds howled and moaned and made all sorts of curious noises, soughing through the bare limbs of the trees, whistling through the chimneys, and, with reckless disregard of my children’s need of rest, slamming doors until my house seemed to be the center of a bombardment of no mean order. It is also necessary to state that the snow, which had been falling all day, had clothed the lawns and housetops in a dazzling drapery of white, and, not content with having done this to the satisfaction of all, was still falling, and, happily enough, as silently as usual. Were I the “wild romancer” that I have been called, I might have had the snow fall with a thunderous roar, but I cannot go to any such length. I love my fellow-beings, but there is a limit to my philanthropy, and I shall not have my snow fall noisily just to make a critic happy. I might do it to save his life, for I should hate to have a man die for the want of what I could give him with a stroke of my pen, and without any special effort, but until that emergency arises I shall not yield a jot in the manner of the falling of my snow.

Occasionally a belated homecomer would pass my house, the sleigh-bells strung about the ample proportions of his steed jingling loud above the roaring of the winds. My family had retired, and I sat alone in the glow of the blazing log—a very satisfactory gas affair—on the hearth. The flashing jet flames cast the usual grotesque shadows about the room, and my mind had thereby been reduced to that sensitive state which had hitherto betokened the coming of a visitor from other realms—a fact which I greatly regretted, for I was in no mood to be haunted. My first impulse, when I recognized the oncoming of that mental state which is evidenced by the goosing of one’s flesh, if I may be allowed the expression, was to turn out the fire and go to bed. I have always found this the easiest method of ridding myself of unwelcome ghosts, and, conversely, I have observed that others who have been haunted unpleasantly have suffered in proportion to their failure to take what has always seemed to me to be the most natural course in the world—to hide their heads beneath the bed-covering. Brutus, when Caesar’s ghost appeared beside his couch, before the battle of Philippi, sat up and stared upon the horrid apparition, and suffered correspondingly, when it would have been much easier and more natural to put his head under his pillow, and so shut out the unpleasant spectacle. That is the course I have invariably pursued, and it has never failed me. The most luminous ghost man ever saw is utterly powerless to shine through a comfortably stuffed pillow, or the usual Christmastime quota of woolen blankets. But upon this occasion I preferred to await developments. The real truth is that I was about written out in the matter of visitations, and needed a reinforcement of my uncanny vein, which, far from being varicose, had become sclerotic, so dry had it been pumped by the demands to which it had been subjected by a clamorous, mystery-loving public. I had, I may as well confess it, run out of ghosts, and had come down to the writing of tales full of the horror of suggestion, leaving my readers unsatisfied through my failure to describe in detail just what kind of looking thing it was that had so aroused their apprehension; and one editor had gone so far as to reject my last ghost story because I had worked him up to a fearful pitch of excitement, and left him there without any reasonable way out. I was face to face with a condition—which, briefly, was that hereafter that desirable market was closed to the products of my pen unless my contributions were accompanied by a diagram which should make my mysteries so plain that a little child could understand how it all came to pass. Hence it was that, instead of following my own convenience and taking refuge in my specter-proof couch, I stayed where I was. I had not long to wait. The dial in my fuel-meter below-stairs had hardly had time to register the consumption of three thousand feet of gas before the faint sound of a bell reached my straining ears—which, by-the-way, is an expression I profoundly hate, but must introduce because the public demands it, and a ghost story without straining ears having therefore no chance of acceptance by a discriminating editor. I started from my chair and listened intently, but the ringing had stopped, and I settled back to the delights of a nervous chill, when again the deathly silence of the night—the wind had quieted in time to allow me the use of this faithful, overworked phrase—was broken by the tintinnabulation of the bell. This time I recognized it as the electric bell operated by a pushbutton upon the right side of my front door. To rise and rush to the door was the work of a moment. It always is. In another instant I had flung it wide. This operation was singularly easy, considering that it was but a narrow door, and width was the last thing it could ever be suspected of, however forcible the fling. However, I did as I have said, and gazed out into the inky blackness of the night.

As I had suspected, there was no one there, and I was at once convinced that the dreaded moment had come. I was certain that at the instant of my turning to reenter my library I should see something which would make my brain throb madly and my pulses start. I did not therefore instantly turn, but let the wind blow the door to with a loud clatter, while I walked quickly into my dining-room and drained a glass of cooking-sherry to the dregs. I do not introduce the cooking-sherry here for the purpose of eliciting a laugh from the reader, but in order to be faithful to life as we live it. All our other sherry had been used by the queen of the kitchen for cooking purposes, and this was all we had left for the table. It is always so in real life, let critics say what they will.

This done, I returned to the library, and sustained my first shock. The unexpected had happened. There was still no one there. Surely this ghost was an original, and I began to be interested.

“Perhaps he is a modest ghost,” I thought, “and is a little shy about manifesting his presence. That, indeed, would be original, seeing how bold the specters of commerce usually are, intruding themselves always upon the privacy of those who are not at all minded to receive them.”

Confident that something would happen, and speedily at that, I sat down to wait, lighting a cigar for company; for burning gas-logs are not as sociable as their hissing, spluttering originals, the genuine logs, in a state of ignition. Several times I started up nervously, feeling as if there was something standing behind me about to place a clammy hand upon my shoulder, and as many times did I resume my attitude of comfort, disappointed. Once I seemed to see a minute spirit floating in the air before me, but investigation showed that it was nothing more than the fanciful curling of the clouds of smoke I had blown from my lips. An hour passed and nothing occurred, save that my heart from throbbing took to leaping in a fashion which filled me with concern. A few minutes later, however, I heard a strange sound at the window, and my leaping heart stood still. The strain upon my tense nerves was becoming unbearable.

“At last!” I whispered to myself, hoarsely, drawing a deep breath, and pushing with all my force into the soft upholstered back of my chair. Then I leaned forward and watched the window, momentarily expecting to see it raised by unseen hands; but it never budged. Then I watched the glass anxiously, half hoping, half fearing to see something pass through it; but nothing came, and I began to get irritable.

I looked at my watch, and saw that it was half-past one o’clock.

“Hang you!” I cried, “whatever you are, why don’t you appear, and be done with it? The idea of keeping a man up until this hour of the night!”

Then I listened for a reply; but there was none.

“What do you take me for?” I continued, querulously. “Do you suppose I have nothing else to do but to wait upon your majesty’s pleasure? Surely, with all the time you’ve taken to make your début, you must be something of unusual horror.”

Again there was no answer, and I decided that petulance was of no avail. Some other tack was necessary, and I decided to appeal to his sympathies—granting that ghosts have sympathies to appeal to, and I have met some who were so human in this respect that I have found it hard to believe that they were truly ghosts.

“I say, old chap,” I said, as genially as I could, considering the situation—I was nervous, and the amount of gas consumed by the logs was beginning to bring up visions of bankruptcy before my eyes—“hurry up and begin your haunting—there’s a good fellow. I’m a father—please remember that—and this is Christmas Eve. The children will be up in about three hours, and if you’ve ever been a parent yourself you know what that means. I must have some rest, so come along and show yourself, like the good specter you are, and let me go to bed.”

I think myself it was a very moving address, but it helped me not a jot. The thing must have had a heart of stone, for it never made answer.

“What?” said I, pretending to think it had spoken and I had not heard distinctly; but the visitant was not to be caught napping, even though I had good reason to believe that he had fallen asleep. He, she, or it, whatever it was, maintained a silence as deep as it was aggravating. I smoked furiously on to restrain my growing wrath. Then it occurred to me that the thing might have some pride, and I resolved to work on that.

“Of course I should like to write you up,” I said, with a sly wink at myself. “I imagine you’d attract a good deal of attention in the literary world. Judging from the time it takes you to get ready, you ought to make a good magazine story—not one of those comic ghost tales that can be dashed off in a minute, and ultimately get published in a book at the author’s expense. You stir so little that, as things go by contraries, you’ll make a stirring tale. You’re long enough, I might say, for a three-volume novel—but—ah—I can’t do you unless I see you. You must be seen to be appreciated. I can’t imagine you, you know. Let’s see, now, if I can guess what kind of a ghost you are. Um! You must be terrifying in the extreme—you’d make a man shiver in mid-August in mid-Africa. Your eyes are unfathomably green. Your smile would drive the sanest mad. Your hands are cold and clammy as a—ah—as a hot-water bag four hours after.”

And so I went on for ten minutes, praising him up to the skies, and ending up with a pathetic appeal that he should manifest his presence. It may be that I puffed him up so that he burst, but, however that may be, he would not condescend to reply, and I grew angry in earnest.

“Very well,” I said, savagely, jumping up from my chair and turning off the gas-log. “Don’t! Nobody asked you to come in the first place, and nobody’s going to complain if you sulk in your tent like Achilles. I don’t want to see you. I could fake up a better ghost than you are anyhow—in fact, I fancy that’s what’s the matter with you. You know what a miserable specimen you are—couldn’t frighten a mouse if you were ten times as horrible. You’re ashamed to show yourself—and I don’t blame you. I’d be that way too if I were you.”

I walked half-way to the door, momentarily expecting to have him call me back; but he didn’t. I had to give him a parting shot.

“You probably belong to a ghost union—don’t you? That’s your secret? Ordered out on strike, and won’t do any haunting after sundown unless some other employer of unskilled ghosts pays his spooks skilled wages.”

I had half a notion that the word “spook” would draw him out, for I have noticed that ghosts do not like to be called spooks any more than negroes like to be called “niggers.” They consider it vulgar. He never yielded in his reserve, however, and after locking up I went to bed.

For a time I could not sleep, and I began to wonder if I had been just, after all. Possibly there was no spirit within miles of me. The symptoms were all there, but might not that have been due to my depressed condition—for it does depress a writer to have one of his best veins become sclerotic—I asked myself, and finally, as I went off to sleep, I concluded that I had been in the wrong all through, and had imagined there was something there when there really was not.

“Very likely the ringing of the bell was due to the wind,” I said, as I dozed off. “Of course it would take a very heavy wind to blow the button in, but then—” and then I fell asleep, convinced that no ghost had ventured within a mile of me that night. But when morning came I was undeceived. Something must have visited us that Christmas Eve, and something very terrible; for while I was dressing for breakfast I heard my wife calling loudly from below.

“Henry!” she cried. “Please come down here at once.”

“I can’t. I’m only half shaved,” I answered.

“Never mind that,” she returned. “Come at once.”

So, with the lather on one cheek and a cut on the other, I went below.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Look at that!” she said, pointing to my grandmother’s hair-sofa, which stood in the hall just outside of my library door.

It had been black when we last saw it, but as I looked I saw that a great change had come over it.

It had turned white in a single night!

Now I can’t account for this strange incident, nor can anyone else, and I do not intend to try. It is too awful a mystery for me to attempt to penetrate, but the sofa is there in proof of all that I have said concerning it, and anyone who desires can call and see it at any time. It is not necessary for them to see me; they need only ask to see the sofa, and it will be shown.

We have had it removed from the hall to the white-and-gold parlor, for we cannot bear to have it stand in any of the rooms we use.

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The Mystery of
Barney O’Rourke

A very irritating thing has happened. My hired man, a certain Barney O’Rourke, an American citizen of much political influence, a good gardener, and, according to his lights, a gentleman, has got very much the best of me, and all because of certain effusions which from time to time have emanated from my pen. It is not often that one’s literary chickens come home to roost in such a vengeful fashion as some of mine have recently done, and I have no doubt that as this story progresses he who reads will find much sympathy for me rising up in his breast. As the matter stands, I am torn with conflicting emotions. I am very fond of Barney, and I have always found him truthful hitherto, but exactly what to believe now I hardly know.

The main thing to bring my present trouble upon me, I am forced to believe, is the fact that my house has been in the past, and may possibly still be, haunted. Why my house should be haunted at all I do not know, for it has never been the scene of any tragedy that I am aware of. I built it myself, and it is paid for. So far as I am aware, nothing awful of a material nature has ever happened within its walls, and yet it appears to be, for the present at any rate, a sort of clubhouse for inconsiderate if not strictly horrid things, which is a most unfair dispensation of the fates, for I have not deserved it. If I were in any sense a Bluebeard, and spent my days cutting ladies’ throats as a pastime; if I had a pleasing habit of inviting friends up from town over Sunday, and dropping them into oubliettes connecting my library with dark, dank, and snaky subterranean dungeons; if guests who dine at my house came with a feeling that the chances were, they would never return to their families alive—it might be different. I shouldn’t and couldn’t blame a house for being haunted if it were the dwelling-place of a bloodthirsty ruffian such as I have indicated, but that is just what it is not. It is not the home of a lover of fearful crimes. I would not walk ten feet for the pleasure of killing any man, no matter who he is. On the contrary, I would walk twenty feet to avoid doing it, if the emergency should ever arise, aye, even if it were that fiend who sits next me at the opera and hums the opera through from beginning to end. There have been times, I must confess, when I have wished I might have had the oubliettes to which I have referred constructed beneath my library and leading to the coal-bins or to some long-forgotten well, but that was two or three years ago, when I was in politics for a brief period, and delegations of willing and thirsty voters were daily and nightly swarming in through every one of the sixteen doors on the ground-floor of my house, which my architect, in a riotous moment, smuggled into the plans in the guise of “French windows.” I shouldn’t have minded then if the earth had opened up and swallowed my whole party, so long as I did not have to go with them, but under such provocation as I had I do not feel that my residence is justified in being haunted after its present fashion because such a notion entered my mind. We cannot help our thoughts, much less our notions, and punishment for that which we cannot help is not in strict accord with latter-day ideas of justice. It may occur to some hypercritical person to suggest that the English language has frequently been murdered in my den, and that it is its horrid corpse which is playing havoc at my home, crying out to heaven and flaunting its bloody wounds in the face of my conscience, but I can pass such an aspersion as that by with contemptuous silence, for even if it were true it could not be set down as wilful assassination on my part, since no sane person who needs a language as much as I do would ever in cold blood kill any one of the many that lie about us. Furthermore, the English language is not dead. It may not be met with often in these days, but it is still encountered with sufficient frequency in the works of Henry James and Miss Libby to prove that it still lives; and I am told that one or two members of our consular service abroad can speak it—though as for this I cannot write with certainty, for I have never encountered one of these exceptions to the general rule.

The episode with which this narrative has to deal is interesting in some ways, though I doubt not some readers will prove skeptical as to its realism. There are suspicious minds in the world, and with these every man who writes of truth must reckon. To such I have only to say that it is my desire and intention to tell the truth as simply as it can be told by James, and as truthfully as Sylvanus Cobb ever wrote!

Now, then, the facts of my story are these:

In the latter part of last July, expecting a meeting of friends at my house in connection with a question of the good government of the city in which I honestly try to pay my taxes, I ordered one hundred cigars to be delivered at my residence. I ordered several other things at the same time, but they have nothing whatever to do with this story, because they were all—every single bottle of them—consumed at the meeting; but of the cigars, about which the strange facts of my story cluster, at the close of the meeting a goodly two dozen remained. This is surprising, considering that there were quite six of us present, but it is true. Twenty-four by actual count remained when the last guest left me. The next morning I and my family took our departure for a month’s rest in the mountains. In the hurry of leaving home, and the worry of looking after three children and four times as many trunks, I neglected to include the cigars in my impedimenta, leaving them in the opened box upon my library table. It was careless of me, no doubt, but it was an important incident, as the sequel shows. The incidents of the stay in the hills were commonplace, but during my absence from home strange things were going on there, as I learned upon my return.

The place had been left in charge of Barney O’Rourke, who, upon my arrival, assured me that everything was all right, and I thanked and paid him.

“Wait a minute, Barney,” I said, as he turned to leave me; “I’ve got a cigar for you.” I may mention incidentally that in the past I had kept Barney on very good terms with his work by treating him in a friendly, sociable way, but, to my great surprise, upon this occasion he declined advances.

His face flushed very red as he observed that he had given up smoking.

“Well, wait a minute, anyhow,” said I. “There are one or two things I want to speak to you about.” And I went to the table to get a cigar for myself.

The box was empty!

Instantly the suspicion which has doubtless flashed through the mind of the reader flashed through my own—Barney had been tempted, and had fallen. I recalled his blush, and on the moment realized that in all my vast experience with hired men in the past I had never seen one blush before. The case was clear. My cigars had gone to help Barney through the hot summer.

“Well, I declare!” I cried, turning suddenly upon him. “I left a lot of cigars here when I went away, Barney.”

“I know ye did, sorr,” said Barney, who had now grown white and rigid. “I saw them meself, sorr. There was twinty-foor of ’em.”

“You counted them, eh?” I asked, with an elevation of my eyebrows which to those who know me conveys the idea of suspicion.

“I did, sorr. In your absence I was responsible for everyt’ing here, and the mornin’ ye wint awy I took a quick invintery, sorr, of the removables,” he answered, fingering his cap nervously. “That’s how it was, sorr, and thim twinty-foor segyars was lyin’ there in the box forninst me eyes.”

“And how do you account for the removal of these removables, as you call them, Barney?” I asked, looking coldly at him. He saw he was under suspicion, and he winced, but pulled himself together in an instant.

“I expected the question, sorr,” he said, calmly, “and I have me answer ready. Thim segyars was shmoked, sorr.”

“Doubtless,” said I, with an ill-suppressed sneer. “And by whom? Cats?” I added, with a contemptuous shrug of my shoulders.

His answer overpowered me, it was so simple, direct, and unexpected.

“Shpooks,” he replied, laconically.

I gasped in astonishment, and sat down. My knees simply collapsed under me, and I could no more have continued to stand up than fly.

“What?” I cried, as soon as I had recovered sufficiently to gasp out the word.

“Shpooks,” replied Barney. “Ut came about like this, sorr. It was the Froiday two wakes afther you left, I became un’asy loike along about nine o’clock in the avenin’, and I fought I’d come around here and see if everything was sthraight. Me wife sez ut’s foolish of me, sorr, and I sez maybe so, but I can’t get ut out o’ me head thot somet’ing’s wrong.

“‘Ye locked everything up safe whin ye left?’ sez she.

“‘I always does,’ sez I.

“‘Thin ut’s a phwhim,’ sez she.

“‘No,’ sez I. ‘Ut’s a sinsation. If ut was a phwim, ut’d be youse as would hov’ it’; that’s what I sez, sevarely loike, sorr, and out I shtarts. It was tin o’clock whin I got here. The noight was dark and blow-in’ loike March, rainin’ and t’underin’ till ye couldn’t hear yourself t’ink.

“I walked down the walk, sorr, an’ barrin’ the t’under everyt’ing was quiet. I troid the dures. All toight as a politician. Shtill, t’inks I, I’ll go insoide. Quiet as a lamb ut was, sorr; but on a suddent, as I was about to go back home again, I shmelt shmoke!”

“Fire?” I cried, excitedly.

“I said shmoke, sorr,” said Barney, whose calmness was now beautiful to look upon, he was so serenely confident of his position.

“Doesn’t smoke involve a fire?” I demanded.

“Sometimes,” said Barney. “I t’ought ye meant a conflagrashun, sorr. The shmoke I shmelt was segyars.”

“Ah,” I observed. “I am glad you are coming to the point. Go on. There is a difference.”

“There is thot,” said Barney, pleasantly, he was getting along so swimmingly. “This shmoke, as I say, was segyar shmoke, so I gropes me way cautious loike up the back sthairs and listens by the library dure. All quiet as a lamb. Thin, bold-loike, I shteps into the room, and nearly drops wid the shcare I have on me in a minute. The room was dark as a b’aver hat, sorr, but in different shpots ranged round in the chairs was six little red balls of foire!”

“Barney!” I cried.

“Thrue, sorr,” said he. “And tobacky shmoke rollin’ out till you’d ’a’ t’ought there was a foire in a segyar-store! Ut queered me, sorr, for a minute, and me impulse is to run; but I gets me courage up, springs across the room, touches the electhric button, an’ bzt! every gas-jet on the flure loights up!”

“That was rash, Barney,” I put in, sarcastically.

“It was in your intherest, sorr,” said he, impressively.

“And you saw what?” I queried, growing very impatient.

“What I hope niver to see again, sorr,” said Barney, compressing his lips solemnly. “Six impty chairs, sorr, wid six segyars as hoigh up from the flure as a man’s mout’, puffin’ and a-blowin’ out shmoke loike a chimbley! An’ ivery oncet in a whoile the segyars would go down kind of an’ be tapped loike as if wid a finger of a shmoker, and the ashes would fall off onto the flure!”

“Well?” said I. “Go on. What next?”

“I wanted to run awy, sorr, but I shtood rutted to the shpot wid th’ surproise I had on me, until foinally ivery segyar was burnt to a shtub and trun into the foireplace, where I found ’em the nixt mornin’ when I came to clane up, provin’ ut wasn’t ony dhrame I’d been havin’.”

I arose from my chair and paced the room for two or three minutes, wondering what I could say. Of course the man was lying, I thought. Then I pulled myself together.

“Barney,” I said, severely, “what’s the use? Do you expect me to believe any such cock-and-bull story as that?”

“No, sorr,” said he. “But thim’s the facts.”

“Do you mean to say that this house of mine is haunted?” I cried.

“I don’t know,” said Barney, quietly. “I didn’t t’ink so before.”

“Before? Before what? When?” I asked.

“Whin you was writin’ shtories about ut, sorr,” said Barney, respectfully. “You’ve had a black horsehair sofy turn white in a single noight, sorr, for the soight of horror ut’s witnessed. You’ve had the hair of your own head shtand on ind loike tinpenny nails at what you’ve seen here in this very room, yourself, sorr. You’ve had ghosts doin’ all sorts of t’ings in the shtories you’ve been writin’ for years, and you’ve always swore they was thrue, sorr. I didn’t believe ’em when I read ’em, but whin I see thim segyars bein’ shmoked up before me eyes by invishible t’ings, I sez to meself, sez I, the boss ain’t such a dommed loiar afther all. I’ve follyd your writin’, sorr, very careful and close loike; an I don’t see how, afther the tales you’ve told about your own experiences right here, you can say consishtently that this wan o’ mine ain’t so!”

“But why, Barney,” I asked, to confuse him, “when a thing like this happened, didn’t you write and tell me?”

Barney chuckled as only one of his species can chuckle.

“Wroite an’ tell ye?” he cried. “Be gorry, sorr, if I could wroite at all at all, ut’s not you oi’d be wroitin’ that tale to, but to the edithor of the paper that you wroite for. A tale loike that is wort’ tin dollars to any man, eshpecially if ut’s thrue. But I niver learned the art!”

And with that Barney left me overwhelmed. Subsequently I gave him the ten dollars which I think his story is worth, but I must confess that I am in a dilemma. After what I have said about my supernatural guests, I cannot discharge Barney for lying, but I’ll be blest if I can quite believe that his story is accurate in every respect.

If there should happen to be among the readers of this tale any who have made a sufficiently close study of the habits of hired men and ghosts to be able to shed any light upon the situation, nothing would please me more than to hear from them.

I may add, in closing, that Barney has resumed smoking.

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The Exorcism
That Failed

I—A JUBILEE EXPERIENCE

It has happened again. I have been haunted once more, and this time by the most obnoxious spook I have ever had the bliss of meeting. He is homely, squat, and excessively vulgar in his dress and manner. I have met cockneys in my day, and some of the most offensive varieties at that, but this spook absolutely outcocknifies them all, and the worst of it is I can’t seem to rid myself of him. He has pursued me like an avenging angel for quite six months, and every plan of exorcism that I have tried so far has failed, including the receipt given me by my friend Peters, who, next to myself, knows more about ghosts that any man living. It was in London that I first encountered the vulgar little creature who has made my life a sore trial ever since, and with whom I am still coping to the best of my powers.

Starting out early in the morning of June 21, last summer, to witness the pageant of her Majesty Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, I secured a good place on the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Trafalgar Square. There were two rows of people ahead of me, but I did not mind that. Those directly before me were short, and I could easily see over their heads, and, furthermore, I was protected from the police, who in London are the most dangerous people I have ever encountered, not having the genial ways of the Irish bobbies who keep the New York crowds smiling; who, when you are pushed into the line of march, merely punch you in a ticklish spot with the end of their clubs, instead of smashing your hair down into your larynx with their sticks, as do their London prototypes.

It was very comforting to me, having witnessed the pageant of 1887, when the Queen celebrated her fiftieth anniversary as a potentate, and thereby learned the English police system of dealing with crowds, to know that there were at least two rows of heads to be split open before my turn came, and I had formed the good resolution to depart as soon as the first row had been thus treated, whether I missed seeing the procession or not.

I had not been long at my post when the crowds concentrating on the line of march, coming up the avenue from the Embankment, began to shove intolerably from the rear, and it was as much as I could do to keep my place, particularly in view of the fact that the undersized cockney who stood in front of me appeared to offer no resistance to the pressure of my waistcoat against his narrow little back. It seemed strange that it should be so, but I appeared, despite his presence, to have nothing of a material nature ahead of me, and I found myself bent at an angle of seventy-five degrees, my feet firmly planted before me like those of a balky horse, restraining the onward tendency of the mob back of me.

Strong as I am, however, and stubborn, I am not a stone wall ten feet thick at the base, and the pressure brought to bear upon my poor self was soon too great for my strength, and I gradually encroached upon my unresisting friend. He turned and hurled a few remarks at me that are not printable, yet he was of no more assistance in withstanding the pressure than a marrowfat pea well cooked would have been.

“I’m sorry,” I said, apologetically, “but I can’t help it. If these policemen would run around to the rear and massacre some of the populace who are pushing me, I shouldn’t have to shove you.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say,” he retorted, “is that if you don’t keep your carcass out of my ribs I’ll haunt you to your dying day.”

“If you’d only put up a little backbone yourself you’d make it easier for me,” I replied, quite hotly. “What are you, anyhow, a jellyfish or an India-rubber man?” He hadn’t time to answer, for just as I spoke an irresistible shove from the crowd pushed me slap up against the man in the front row, and I was appalled to find the little fellow between us bulging out on both sides of me, crushed longitudinally from top to toe, so that he resembled a paper doll before the crease is removed from its middle, three-quarters open. “Great heavens!” I muttered. “What have I struck?”

“L-lul-let me out!” he gasped. “Don’t you see you are squ-queezing my figure out of shape? Get bub-back, blank it!”

“I can’t,” I panted. “I’m sorry, but—”

“Sorry be hanged!” he roared. “This is my place, you idiot—”

This was too much for me, and in my inability to kick him with my foot I did it with my knee, and then, if I had not been excited, I should have learned the unhappy truth. My knee went straight through him and shoved the man ahead into the coattails of the bobbie in front. It was fortunate for me that it happened as it did, for the front-row man was wrathful enough to have struck me; but the police took care of him; and as he was carried away on a stretcher, the little jelly-fish came back into his normal proportions, like an inflated India-rubber toy.

“What the deuce are you, anyhow?” I cried, aghast at the spectacle.

“You’ll find out before you are a year older!” he wrathfully answered. “I’ll show you a shoving trick or two that you won’t like, you blooming Yank!”

It made me excessively angry to be called a blooming Yank. I am a Yankee, and I have been known to bloom, but I can’t stand having a low-class Britisher apply that term to me as if it were an opprobrious thing to be, so I tried once more to kick him with my knee. Again my knee passed through him, and this time took the policeman himself in the vicinity of his pistol-pocket. The irate officer turned quickly, raised his club, and struck viciously, not at the little creature, but at me. He didn’t seem to see the jellyfish. And then the horrid truth flashed across my mind. The thing in front of me was a ghost—a miserable relic of some bygone pageant, and visible only to myself, who have an eye to that sort of thing. Luckily the bobbie missed his stroke, and as I apologized, telling him I had St. Vitus’s dance and could not control my unhappy leg, accompanying the apology with a half sovereign—both of which were accepted—peace reigned, and I shortly had the bliss of seeing the whole sovereign ride by—that is, I was told that the lady behind the parasol, which obscured everything but her elbow, was her Majesty the Queen.

Nothing more of interest happened between this and the end of the procession, although the little spook in front occasionally turned and paid me a compliment which would have cost any material creature his life. But that night something of importance did happen, and it has been going on ever since. The unlovely creature turned up in my lodgings just as I was about to retire, and talked in his rasping voice until long after four o’clock. I ordered him out, and he declined to go. I struck at him, but it was like hitting smoke.

“All right,” said I, putting on my clothes. “If you won’t get out, I will.”

“That’s exactly what I intended you to do,” he said. “How do you like being shoved, eh? Yesterday was the 21st of June. I shall keep shoving you along, even as you shoved me, for exactly one year.”

“Humph!” I retorted. “You called me a blooming Yank yesterday. I am. I shall soon be out of your reach in the great and glorious United States.”

“Oh, as for that,” he answered, calmly, “I can go to the United States. There are steamers in great plenty. I could even get myself blown across on a gale, if I wanted to—only gales are not always convenient. Some of ’em don’t go all the way through, and connections are hard to make. A gale I was riding on once stopped in mid-ocean, and I had to wait a week before another came along, and it landed me in Africa instead of at New York.”

“Got aboard the wrong gale, eh?” said I, with a laugh.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Didn’t you drown?” I cried, somewhat interested.

“Idiot!” he retorted. “Drown? How could I? You can’t drown a ghost!”

“See here,” said I, “if you call me an idiot again, I’ll—I’ll—”

“What?” he put in, with a grin. “Now just what will you do? You’re clever, but I’m a ghost!”

“You wait and see!” said I, rushing angrily from the room. It was a very weak retort, and I frankly admit that I am ashamed of it, but it was the best I had at hand at the moment. My stock of repartee, like most men’s vitality, is at its lowest ebb at four o’clock in the morning.

For three or four hours I wandered aimlessly about the city, and then returned to my room, and found it deserted; but in the course of my peregrinations I had acquired a most consuming appetite. Usually I eat very little breakfast, but this morning nothing short of a sixteen-course dinner could satisfy my ravening; so instead of eating my modest boiled egg, I sought the Savoy, and at nine o’clock entered the breakfast-room of that highly favored caravansary. Imagine my delight, upon entering, to see, sitting near one of the windows, my newly made acquaintances of the steamer, the Travises of Boston, Miss Travis looking more beautiful than ever and quite as haughty, by whom I was invited to join them. I accepted with alacrity, and was just about to partake of a particularly nice melon when who should walk in but that vulgar little specter, hat jauntily placed on one side of his head, check-patterned trousers loud enough to wake the dead, and a green plaid vest about his middle that would be an indictable offense even on an American golf links.

“Thank Heaven they can’t see the brute!” I muttered as he approached.

“Hullo, old chappie!” he cried, slapping me on my back. “Introduce me to your charming friends,” and with this he gave a horrible lowborn smirk at Miss Travis, to whom, to my infinite sorrow, by some accursed miracle, he appeared as plainly visible as he was to me.

“Really,” said Mrs. Travis, turning coldly to me, “we—we can’t, you know—we—Come, Eleanor. We will leave this gentleman with his friend, and have our breakfast sent to our rooms.”

And with that they rose up and scornfully departed. The creature then sat down in Miss Travis’s chair and began to devour her roll.

“See here,” I cried, finally, “what the devil do you mean?”

“Shove number two,” he replied, with his unholy smirk. “Very successful, eh? Werl, just you wait for number three. It will be what you Americans call a corker. By-bye.”

And with that he vanished, just in time to spare me the humiliation of shying a pot of coffee at his head. Of course my appetite vanished with him, and my main duty now seemed to be to seek out the Travises and explain; so leaving the balance of my breakfast untasted, I sought the office, and sent my card up to Mrs. Travis. The response was immediate.

“The loidy says she’s gone out, sir, and ain’t likely to be back,” remarked the top-lofty buttons, upon his return.

I was so maddened by this slight, and so thoroughly apprehensive of further trouble from the infernal shade, that I resolved without more ado to sneak out of England and back to America before the deadly blighting thing was aware of my intentions. I immediately left the Savoy, and sought the office of the Green Star Line, secured a room on the steamer sailing the next morning—the Digestic—from Liverpool, and was about packing up my belongings, when it turned up again.

“Going away, eh?”

“Yes,” I replied, shortly, and then I endeavored to deceive him. “I’ve been invited down to Leamington to spend a week with my old friend Dr. Liverton.”

“Oh, indeed!” he observed. “Thanks for the address. I will not neglect you during your stay there. Be prepared for a shove that will turn your hair gray. Au revoir.”

And he vanished, muttering the address I had given him—“Dr. Liverton, Leamington—Dr. Liverton.” To which he added, “I won’t forget that, not by a jugful.”

I chuckled softly to myself as he disappeared. “He’s clever, but—there are others,” I said, delighted at the ease with which I had rid myself of him; and then eating a hearty luncheon, I took the train to Liverpool, where next morning I embarked on the Digestic for New York.

II—AN UNHAPPY VOYAGE

The sense of relief that swept over me when the great anchor of the Digestic came up from the unstrained quality of the Mersey, and I thought of the fact that shortly a vast ocean would roll between me and that fearful spook, was one of the most delightful emotions that it has ever been my good fortune to experience. Now all seemed serene, and I sought my cabin belowstairs, whistling gaily; but, alas! how fleeting is happiness, even to a whistler!

As I drew near to the room which I had fondly supposed was to be my own exclusively I heard profane remarks issuing therefrom. There was condemnation of the soap; there was perdition for the lighting apparatus; there were maledictions upon the location of the port, and the bedding was excommunicate.

“This is strange,” said I to the steward. “I have engaged this room for the passage. I hear somebody in there.”

“Not at all, sir,” said he, opening the door; “it is empty.” And to him it undoubtedly appeared to be so.

“But,” I cried, “didn’t you hear anything?”

“Yes, I did,” he said, candidly; “but I supposed you was a ventriloquist, sir, and was a-puttin’ up of a game on me.”

Here the steward smiled, and I was too angry to retort. And then—Well, you have guessed it. He turned up—and more vulgar than ever.

“Hullo!” he said, nonchalantly, fooling with a suitcase. “Going over?”

“Oh no!” I replied, sarcastic. “Just out for a swim. When we get off the Banks I’m going to jump overboard and swim to the Azores on a wager.”

“How much?” he asked.

“Five bob,” said I, feeling that he could not grasp a larger amount.

“Humph!” he ejaculated. “I’d rather drive a cab—as I used to.”

“Ah?” said I. “That’s what you were, eh? A cabdriver. Takes a mighty mind to be that, eh? Splendid intellectual effort to drive a cab from the Reform Club to the Bank, eh?”

I had hoped to wither him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered, suavely. “I’ll tell you this, though: I’d rather go from the Club to the Bank on my hansom with me holding the reins than try to do it with Mr. Gladstone or the Prince o’ Wiles on the box.”

“Prince o’ Wiles?” I said, with a withering manner.

“That’s what I said,” he retorted. “You would call him Prince of Whales, I suppose—like a Yank, a blooming Yank—because you think Britannia rules the waves.”

I had to laugh; and then a plan of conciliation suggested itself. I would jolly him, as my political friends have it.

“Have a drink?” I asked.

“No, thanks; I don’t indulge,” he replied. “Let me offer you a cigar.”

I accepted, and he extracted a very fair-looking weed from his box, which he handed me. I tried to bite off the end, succeeding only in biting my tongue, whereat the presence roared with laughter.

“What’s the joke now?” I queried, irritated.

“You,” he answered. “The idea of anyone’s being fool enough to try to bite off the end of a spook cigar strikes me as funny.”

From that moment all thought of conciliation vanished, and I resorted to abuse.

“You are a lowborn thing!” I shouted. “And if you don’t get out of here right away I’ll break every bone in your body.”

“Very well,” he answered, coolly, scribbling on a pad close at hand. “There’s the address.”

“What address?” I asked.

“Of the cemetery where those bones you are going to break are to be found. You go in by the side gate, and ask any of the gravediggers where—”

“You infernal scoundrel!” I shrieked, “this is my room. I have bought and paid for it, and I intend to have it. Do you hear?”

His response was merely the clapping of his hands together, and in a stage-whisper, leaning towards me, he said:

“Bravo! Bravo! You are great. I think you could do Lear. Say those last words again, will you?”

His calmness was too much for me, and I lost all control of myself. Picking up the water-bottle, I hurled it at him with all the force at my command. It crashed through him and struck the mirror over the washstand, and as the shattered glass fell with a loud noise to the floor the door to my stateroom opened, and the captain of the ship, flanked by the room steward and the doctor, stood at the opening.

“What’s all this about?” said the captain, addressing me.

“I have engaged this room for myself alone,” I said, trembling in my rage, “and I object to that person’s presence.” Here I pointed at the intruder.

“What person’s presence?” demanded the captain, looking at the spot where the haunting thing sat grinning indecently.

“What person?” I roared, forgetting the situation for the moment. “Why, him—it—whatever you choose to call it. He’s settled down here, and has been blackguarding me for twenty minutes, and, damn it, captain, I won’t stand it!”

“It’s a clear case,” said the captain, with a sigh, turning and addressing the doctor. “Have you a straitjacket?”

“Thank you, captain,” said I, calming down. “It’s what he ought to have, but it won’t do any good. You see, he’s not a material thing. He’s buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, and so the straitjacket won’t help us.”

Here the doctor stepped into the room and took me gently by the arm. “Take off your clothes,” he said, “and lie down. You need quiet.”

“I?” I demanded, not as yet realizing my position. “Not by a long shot. Fire him out. That’s all I ask.”

“Take off your clothes and get into that bed,” repeated the doctor, peremptorily. Then he turned to the captain and asked him to detail two of his sailors to help him. “He’s going to be troublesome,” he added, in a whisper. “Mad as a hatter.”

I hesitate, in fact decline, to go through the agony of what followed again by writing of it in detail. Suffice it to say that the doctor persisted in his order that I should undress and go to bed, and I, conscious of the righteousness of my position, fought this determination, until, with the assistance of the steward and the two able-bodied seamen detailed by the captain at the doctor’s request, I was forcibly unclad and thrown into the lower berth and strapped down. My wrath knew no bounds, and I spoke my mind as plainly as I knew how. It is a terrible thing to be sane, healthy, fond of deck-walking, full of life, and withal unjustly strapped to a lower berth below the water-line on a hot day because of a little beast of a cockney ghost, and I fairly howled my sentiments.

On the second day from Liverpool two maiden ladies in the room next mine made representations to the captain which resulted in my removal to the steerage. They couldn’t consent, they said, to listen to the shrieks of the maniac in the adjoining room.

And then, when I found myself lying on a cot in the steerage, still strapped down, who should appear but my little specter.

“Well,” he said, sitting on the edge of the cot, “what do you think of it now, eh? Ain’t I a shover from Shoverville on the Push?”

“It’s all right,” I said, contemptuously. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Spook: when I die and have a ghost of my own, that ghost will seek you out, and, by thunder, if it doesn’t thrash the life out of you, I’ll disown it!”

It seemed to me that he paled a bit at this, but I was too tired to gloat over a little thing like that, so I closed my eyes and went to sleep. A few days later I was so calm and rational that the doctor released me, and for the remainder of my voyage I was as free as any other person on board, except that I found myself constantly under surveillance, and was of course much irritated by the notion that my spacious stateroom was not only out of my reach, but probably in the undisputed possession of the cockney ghost.

After seven days of ocean travel New York was reached, and I was allowed to step ashore without molestation. But my infernal friend turned up on the pier, and added injury to insult by declaring in my behalf certain dutiable articles in my trunks, thereby costing me some dollars which I should much rather have saved. Still, after the incidents of the voyage, I thought it well to say nothing, and accepted the hardships of the experience in the hope that in the far distant future my spook would meet his and thrash the very death out of him.

Well, things went on. The cockney spook left me to my own devices until November, when I had occasion to lecture at a certain college in the Northwest. I traveled from my home to the distant platform, went upon it, was introduced by the proper functionary, and began my lecture. In the middle of the talk, who should appear in a vacant chair well down towards the stage but the cockney ghost, with a guffaw at a strong and not humorous point, which disconcerted me! I broke down and left the platform, and in the small room at the side encountered him.

“Shove the fourth!” he cried, and vanished.

It was then that I consulted Peters as to how best to be rid of him.

“There is no use of talking about it,” I said to Peters, “the man is ruining me. Socially with the Travises I am an outcast, and I have no doubt they will tell about it, and my ostracism will extend. On the Digestic my sanity is seriously questioned, and now for the first time in my life, before some two thousand people, I break down in a public lecture which I have delivered dozens of times hitherto without a tremor. The thing cannot go on.”

“I should say not,” Peters answered. “Maybe I can help you to get rid of him, but I’m not positive about it; my new scheme isn’t as yet perfected. Have you tried the fire-extinguisher treatment?”

I will say here, that Peters upon two occasions has completely annihilated unpleasant specters by turning upon them the colorless and odorless liquids whose chemical action is such that fire cannot live in their presence.

“Fire, the vital spark, is the essential element of all these chaps,” said he, “and if you can turn the nozzle of your extinguisher on that spook your ghost simply goes out.”

“No, I haven’t,” I replied; “but I will the first chance I get.” And I left him, hopeful if not confident of a successful exorcism.

On my return home I got out two of the extinguishers which were left in my back hall for use in case of an emergency, and tested one of them on the lawn. I merely wished to ascertain if it would work with spirit, and it did; it went off like a sodawater fountain loaded with dynamite, and I felt truly happy for the first time in many days.

“The vulgar little beast would better keep away from me now,” I laughed. But my mirth was short-lived. Whether or not the obnoxious little chap had overheard, or from some hidden coign had watched my test of the fire-extinguisher I don’t know, but when he came to my den that night he was amply protected against the annihilating effects of the liquid by a flaring plaid mackintosh, with a toque for his head, and the minute I started the thing squirting he turned his back and received the charge harmless on his shoulders.

The only effect of the experiment was the drenching and consequent ruin of a pile of MSS. I had been at work on all day, which gave me another grudge against him. When the extinguisher had exhausted itself, the specter turned about and fairly raised the ceiling with his guffaws, and when he saw my ruined pages upon the desk his mirth became convulsive.

“De-lightful!” he cried. “For an impromptu shove wherein I turn over the shoving to you in my own behalf, I never saw it equaled. Wouldn’t be a bad thing if all writers would wet down their MSS. the same way, now would it?”

But I was too indignant to reply, and too chagrined over my failure to remain within-doors, so I rushed out and paced the fields for two hours. When I returned, he had gone.

Three weeks later he turned up once more. “Great Heavens!” I cried; “you back again?”

“Yes,” he answered; “and I’ve come to tell you I’m mighty sorry about those ruined MSS. of yours. It is too bad that your whole day’s work had to go for nothing.”

“I think so myself,” I retorted, coldly. “It’s rather late in the day for you to be sorry, though. If you’ll show your sincerity by going away and never crossing my path again, I may believe in you.”

“Ah!” he said, “I’ve shown it in another way. Indeed I have. You know I have some conscience, though, to tell the truth, I haven’t made much use of it. This time, however, as I considered the situation, a little voice rose up within me and said: ‘It’s all right, old chap, to be rough on this person; make him mad and shove him every which way; but don’t destroy his work. His work is what he lives by—’”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “and after what I told you on the steamer about what I would do to you when we got on even terms, you are not anxious to have me die. I know just how you feel. No thing likes to contemplate that paralysis that will surely fall upon you when my ghost begins to get in its fine work. I’m putting it in training now.”

“You poor droll mortal!” laughed the cockney. “You poor droll mortal! As if I could ever be afraid of that! What is the matter with my going into training myself? Two can train, you know—even three. You almost make me feel sorry I tried to remedy the loss of those MSS.”

Somehow or other a sense of some new misfortune came upon me.

“What?” I said, nervously.

“I say I’m almost sorry I tried to remedy the loss of those manuscripts. Composition, particularly poetry, is devilish hard for me—I admit it—and when I think of how I toiled over my substitutes for your ruined stuff, and see how very ungrateful you are, I grudge the effort.”

“I don’t understand you,” I said, anxiously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I have written and sent out to the editors of the papers you write for a half a dozen poems and short stories.”

“What has all that got to do with me?” I demanded.

“A great deal,” he said. “You’ll get the pay. I signed your name to ’em.”

“Y—you—you—you—did what?” I cried.

“Signed your name to ’em. There was a sonnet to ‘A Coal Grab’—that was the longest of the lot. I think it will cover at least six magazine pages—”

“But,” I cried, “a sonnet never contains more than fourteen lines—you—fool!”

“Oh yes, it does,” he replied, calmly. “This one of yours had over four hundred. And then I wrote a three-page quatrain on ‘Immortality,’ which, if I do say it, is the funniest thing I ever read. I sent that to the Weekly Methodist.”

“Good Lord, good Lord, good Lord!” I moaned. “A three-page quatrain!”

“Yes,” he observed, calmly lighting one of his accursed cigars. “And you’ll get all the credit.”

A ray of hope entered my soul, and it enabled me to laugh hysterically. “They’ll know it isn’t mine,” said I. “They know my handwriting at the office of the Weekly Methodist.”

“No doubt,” said he, dashing all my hopes to the ground. “But—ah—to remedy that drawback I took pains to find out what typewriter you used, and I had my quatrain copied on one of the same make.”

“But the letter—the note with the manuscript?” I put in.

“Oh, I got over that very easily,” he said. “I had that written also on the machine, on thin paper, and traced your signature at the bottom. It will be all right, my dear fellow. They’ll never suspect.”

And then, looking at the spirit-watch which he carried in his spectral fob-pocket, he vanished, leaving me immersed in the deepest misery of my life. Not content with ruining me socially, and as a lecturer; not satisfied with destroying me mentally on the seas, he had now attacked me on my most vulnerable point, my literary aspirations. I could not rest until I had read his “three-page quatrain” on “Immortality.” Vulgar as I knew him to be, I felt confident that over my name something had gone out which even in my least self-respecting moods I could not tolerate. The only comfort that came to me was that his verses and his typewriting and his tracings of my autograph would be as spectral to others as to the eye not attuned to the seeing of ghosts. I was soon to be undeceived, however, for the next morning’s mail brought to my home a dozen packages from my best “consumers,” containing the maudlin frivolings of this—this—this—well, there is no polite word to describe him in any known tongue. I shall have to study the Aryan language—or Kipling—to find an epithet strong enough to apply to this especial case. Every point, every single detail, about these packages was convincing evidence of their contents having been of my own production. The return envelopes were marked at the upper corner with my name and address. The handwriting upon them was manifestly mine, although I never in my life penned those particular superscriptions. Within these envelopes were, I might say, pounds of MSS., apparently from my own typewriting machine, and signed in an autograph which would have deceived even myself.

And the stuff!

Stuff is not the word—in fact, there is no word in any language, however primitive and impolite, that will describe accurately the substance of those pages. And with each came a letter from the editor of the periodical to which the tale or poem had been sent advising me to stop work for a while, and one suggested the Keeley cure!

Immediately I sat down and wrote to the various editors to whom these productions had been submitted, explaining all—and every one of them came back to me unopened, with the average statement that until I had rested a year they really hadn’t the time to read what I wrote; and my best friend among them, the editor of the Weekly Methodist, took the trouble to telegraph to my brother the recommendation that I should be looked after. And out of the mistaken kindness of his heart, he printed a personal in his next issue to the effect that his “valued contributor, Mr. Me, the public would regret to hear, was confined to his house by a sudden and severe attack of nervous prostration,” following it up with an estimate of my career, which bore every mark of having been saved up to that time for use as an obituary.

And as I read the latter—the obituary—over, with tears in my eyes, what should I hear but the words, spoken at my back, clearly, but in unmistakable cockney accents,

“Shove the fifth!” followed by uproarious laughter. I grabbed up the ink-bottle and threw it with all my strength back of me, and succeeded only in destroying the wallpaper.

IV—THE FAILURE

The destruction of the wallpaper, not to mention the wiping out in a moment of my means of livelihood, made of the fifth shove an intolerable nuisance. Controlling myself with difficulty, I put on my hat and rushed to the telegraph office, whence I dispatched a message, marked “Rush,” to Peters.

“For Heaven’s sake, complete your exorcism and bring it here at once,” I wired him. “Answer collect.”

Peters by no means soothed my agitation by his immediate and extremely flippant response.

“I don’t know why you wish me to answer collect, but I suppose you do. So I answer as you request: Collect. What is it you are going to collect? Your scattered faculties?” he telegraphed. It was a mean sort of a telegram to send to a man in my unhappy state, and if he hadn’t prepaid it I should never have forgiven him. I was mad enough when I received it, and a hot retort was about to go back, when the bothersome spook turned up and drew my mind off to other things.

“Well, what do you think of me?” he said, ensconcing himself calmly on my divan. “Pretty successful shover myself, eh?” Then he turned his eye to the ink spots on the wall. “Novel design in decoration, that. You ought to get employment in some wallpaper house. Given an accurate aim and plenty of ink, you can’t be beaten for vigorous spatter-work.”

I pretended to ignore his presence, and there was a short pause, after which he began again:

“Sulky, eh? Oh, well, I don’t blame you. There’s nothing in this world that can so harrow up one’s soul as impotent wrath. I’ve heard of people bursting with it. I’ve had experiences in the art of irritation before this case. There was a fellow once hired my cab for an hour. Drove him all about London, and then he stopped in at a chop-house, leaving me outside. I waited and waited and waited, but he never came back. Left by the back door, you know. Clever trick, and for a while the laugh was on me; but when I got to the point where I could haunt him, I did it to the Regent’s taste. I found him three years after my demise, and through the balance of his life pursued him everywhere with a phantom cab. If he went to church, I’d drive my specter rig right down the middle aisle after him. If he called on a girl, there was the cab drawn up alongside of him in the parlor all the time, the horse stamping his foot and whinnying like all possessed. Of course no one else saw me or the horse or the cab, but he did—and, Lord! how mad he was, and how hopeless! Finally, in a sudden surge of wrath at his impotence, he burst, just like a soap-bubble. It was most amusing. Even the horse laughed.”

“Thanks for the story,” said I, wishing to anger him by my nonchalance. “I’ll write it up.”

“Do,” he said. “It will make a clever sixth shove for me. People say your fancies are too wild and extravagant even now. A story like that will finish you at once.”

“Again, thanks,” said I, very calmly. “This time for the hint. Acting on your advice, I won’t write it up.”

“Don’t,” he retorted. “And be forever haunted with the idea. Either way, it suits me.”

And he vanished once more.

The next morning Peters arrived at my house.

“I’ve come,” he said, as he entered my den. “The scheme is perfected at last, and possibly you can use it. You need help of some kind. I can see that, just by reading your telegram. You’re nervous as a cat. How do you heat your house?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” I demanded, irritably. “You can’t evaporate the little cuss.”

“Don’t want to,” Peters replied. “That’s been tried before, and it doesn’t work. My scheme is a better one than that. Did you ever notice, while smoking in a house that is heated by a hot-air furnace, how, when a cloud of smoke gets caught in the current of air from the register, it is mauled and twisted until it gets free, or else is torn entirely apart?”

“Yes, I have,” said I. “What of it?”

“Well, what’s the matter with being genial with your old cockney until he gets in the habit of coming here every night, and bide your time until, without his knowing it, you can turn a blast from the furnace on him that will simply rend him to pieces?”

“By Jove!” I cried, delightedly. “You are a genius, old chap.”

I rose and shook his hand until he remonstrated.

“Save your energy for him,” said he. “You’ll need it. It won’t be a pleasant spectacle to witness when, in his struggles to get away, he is gradually dismembered. It will be something like the drawing and quartering punishment of olden times.”

I shuddered as I thought of it, and for a moment was disposed to reject the plan, but my weakness left me as I thought of the ruin that stared me in the face.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “It will have its pleasurable side, however fearsome it may prove as a sight. This house is just fitted for the operation, particularly on warm days. I have seen times when the blasts of hot air from my furnace have blown one of my poems off my table across the room.”

“Great Scott!” cried Peters. “What a cyclone of an air-box you must have!”

Fortunately the winter season was on, and we were able to test the capacity of the furnace, with gratifying results. A soap-bubble was blown, and allowed to float downward until the current was reached, and the novel shapes it took, as it was blown about the room in its struggles to escape before it burst, were truly wonderful. I doubted not for an instant, from what I then saw, that the little cad of a specter that was ruining my life would soon meet his Nemesis. So convinced was I of the ultimate success of the plan that I could hardly wait patiently for his coming. I became morbidly anxious for the horrid spectacle which I should witness as his body was torn apart and gradually annihilated by the relentless output of my furnace flues. To my great annoyance, it was two weeks before he turned up again, and I was beginning to fear that he had in some wise got wind of my intentions, and was turning my disappointment over his absence into the sixth of his series of “shoves.” Finally, however, my anxiety was set at rest by his appearance on a night especially adapted to a successful issue of the conspiracy. It was blowing great guns from the west, and the blasts of air, intermittent in their force, that came up through the flues were such that under other circumstances they would have annoyed me tremendously. Almost everything in the line of the current that issued from the register and passed diagonally across the room to my fireplace, and so on up the chimney, was disturbed. The effect upon particles of paper and the fringes on my chairs was almost that of a pneumatic tube on substances placed within it, and on one or two occasions I was seriously apprehensive of the manner in which the flames on the hearth leaped upward into the sooty heights of my chimney flues.

But when, as happened shortly, I suddenly became conscious that my specter cockney had materialized, all my fears for the safety of my house fled, and I surreptitiously turned off the heat, so that once he got within range of the register I could turn it on again, and his annihilation would be as instantaneous as what my newspaper friends call an electrocution. And that was precisely where I made my mistake, although I must confess that what ensued when I got the nauseating creature within range was most delightful.

“Didn’t expect me back, eh?” he said, as he materialized in my library. “Missed me, I suppose, eh?”

“I’ve missed you like the deuce!” I replied, cordially, holding out my hand as if welcoming him back, whereat he frowned suspiciously. “Now that I’m reconciled to your system, and know that there is no possible escape for me, I don’t seem to feel so badly. How have you been, and what have you been doing?”

“Bah!” he retorted. “What’s up now? You know mighty well you don’t like me any better than you ever did. What funny little game are you trying to work on me now, eh?”

“Really, ’Arry,” I replied, “you wrong me—and, by-the-way, excuse me for calling you ’Arry. It is the most appropriate name I can think of at the moment.”

“Call me what you blooming please,” he answered. “But remember you can’t soft-soap me into believing you like me. B-r-r-r-r!” he added, shivering. “It’s beastly cold in here. What you been doing—storing ice?”

“Well—there’s a fire burning over there in the fireplace,” said I, anxious to get him before the open chimney-place; for, by a natural law, that was directly in the line of the current.

He looked at me suspiciously, and then at the fireplace with equal mistrust; then he shrugged his shoulders with a mocking laugh that jarred.

“Humph!” he said. “What’s your scheme? Got some patent explosive logs, full of chemicals, to destroy me?”

I laughed. “How suspicious you are!” I said.

“Yes—I always am of suspicious characters,” he replied, planting himself immediately in front of the register, desirous no doubt of acting directly contrary to my suggestion.

My opportunity had come more easily than I expected.

“There isn’t any heat here,” said he.

“It’s turned off. I’ll turn it on for you,” said I, scarcely able to contain myself with excitement—and I did.

Well, as I say, the spectacle was pleasing, but it did not work as I had intended. He was caught in the full current, not in any of the destroying eddyings of the side upon which I had counted to twist his legs off and wring his neck. Like the soap-bubble, it is true, he was blown into various odd fantastic shapes, such as crullers resolve themselves into when not properly looked after, but there was no dismembering of his body. He struggled hard to free himself, and such grotesque attitudes as his figure assumed I never saw even in one of Aubrey Beardsley’s finest pictures; and once, as his leg and right arm verged on the edge of one of the outside eddies, I hoped to see these members elongated like a piece of elastic until they snapped off; but, with a superhuman struggle, he got them free, with the loss only of one of his fingers, by which time the current had blown him across the room and directly in front of my fender. To keep from going up the chimney, he tried to brace himself against this with his feet, but missing the rail, as helpless as a feather, he floated, toes first, into the fireplace, and thence, kicking, struggling, and swearing profanely, disappeared into the flue.

It was too exciting a moment for me to laugh over my triumph, but shortly there came a nervous reaction which made me hysterical as I thought of his odd appearance; and then following close upon this came the dashing of my hopes.

An infernal misplaced, uncalled-for back gust, a diversion in which, thanks to an improper construction, my chimney frequently indulges, blew the unhappy creature back into the room again, strained, sprained, panting, minus the finger he had lost, and so angry that he quivered all over.

What his first words were I shall not repeat. They fairly seethed out of his turned and twisted soul, hissing like the escape-valve of an ocean steamer, and his eyes, as they fell upon mine, actually burned me.

“This settles it,” he hissed, venomously. “I had intended letting you off with one more shove, but now, after your dastardly attempt to rend me apart with your damned hot-air furnace, I shall haunt you to your dying day; I shall haunt you so terribly that years before your final exit from this world you will pray for death. As a shover you have found me equal to everything, but since you prefer twisting, twisting be it. You shall hear from me again!”

He vanished, and, I must confess it, I threw myself upon my couch, weeping hot tears of despair.

Peters’s scheme had failed, and I was in a far worse position than ever. Shoving I can stand, but the brief exhibition of twisting that I had had in watching his struggles with that awful cyclonic blast from below convinced me that there was something in life even more to be dreaded than the shoving he and I had been indulging in.

But there was a postscript, and now all is well again, because—but let us reserve the wherefore of the postscript for another, concluding chapter.

V—POSTSCRIPT

So hopeless was my estate now become that, dreading more than ever that which the inscrutable future held for me, I sat down and framed an advertisement, which I contemplated putting in all the newspapers, weeklies, and monthly periodicals, offering a handsome reward for any suggestion which might result in ridding me of the cockney ghost. The inventive mind of man has been able to cope successfully with rats and mice and other household pests. Why, then, should there not be somewhere in the world a person of sufficient ingenuity to cope with an obnoxious spirit? If rat-dynamite and rough on June-bugs were possible, why was it not likely that some as yet unknown person had turned his attention to spectrology, and evolved something in the nature of rough on ghosts, spectremelinite, or something else of an effective nature, I asked myself. It seemed reasonable to suppose that out of the millions of people in the world there were others than Peters and myself who had made a study of ghosts and methods of exorcising them, and if these persons could only be reached I might yet escape. Accordingly, I penned the advertisement, about as follows:

WANTED, by a young and rising author, who is pursued by a vindictive spirit,

A GHOST CURE.

A liberal reward will be paid to any wizard, recognized or unrecognized, who will, before February I, 1898, send to me a detailed statement of a

GUARANTEED METHOD
of getting rid of

SPOOKS.

It is agreed that these communications shall be regarded as strictly confidential until such a time as through their medium the spirit is effectually

LAID,
after which time the cure will be exploited

FREE OF CHARGE
in the best advertising mediums of the day.

To this I appended an assumed name and a temporary address, and was about to send it out, when my friend Wilkins, a millionaire student of electricity, living in Florida, invited me to spend my Christmas holidays with him on Lake Worth.

“I’ve got a grand scheme,” he wrote, “which I am going to test, and I’d like to have you present at the trial. Come down, if you can, and see my new electric sailboat and all-around dynamic Lone Fisherman.”

The idea took hold of me at once. In my nervous state the change of scene would do me good. Besides, Wilkins was a delightful companion.

So, forgetting my woes for the moment, I packed my trunk and started South for Wilkins’s Island. It was upon this trip that the vengeful spirit put in his first twist, for at Jacksonville I was awakened in the middle of the night by a person, whom I took to be the conductor, who told me to change cars. This I did, and falling asleep in the car to which I had changed, waked up the next morning to find myself speeding across the peninsula instead of going downward towards the Keys, as I should have done, landing eventually at a small place called Homosassa, on the Gulf coast.

Of course it was not the conductor of the first train who, under cover of the darkness, had led me astray, but the pursuing spirit, as I found out when, bewildered, I sat upon the platform of the station at Homosassa, wondering how the deuce I had got there. He turned up at that moment, and frankly gloated over the success of what he called shove the seventh, and twist the first.

“Nice place, this,” said he, with a nauseating smirk. “So close to Lake Worth—eh? Only two days’ ride on the choo-choo, if you make connections, and when changing take the right trains.”

I pretended not to see him, and began to whistle the intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticana,” to show how little I cared.

“Good plan, old chap,” said he; “but it won’t work. I know you are put out, in spite of the tunefulness of your soul. But wait for my second twist. You’ll wish you’d struck a cyclone instead when that turn comes.”

It was, as he suggested, at least two days before I was able to get to Wilkins at Lake Worth; but after I got there the sense of annoyance and the deep dejection into which I was plunged wore away, as well it might, for the test which I was invited to witness was most interesting. The dynamic Lone Fisherman was wonderful enough, but the electric sailboat was a marvel. The former was very simple. It consisted of a reel operated by electricity, which, the moment a blue-fish struck the skid at the end of the line, reeled the fish in, and flopped it into a basket as easily and as surely as you please; but the principle of the sailboat was new.

“I don’t need a breeze to sail anywhere,” said Wilkins, as he hauled up the mainsail, which flapped idly in the still air. “For you see,” he added, touching a button alongside of the tiller, “this button sets that big electric fan in the stern revolving, and the result is an artificial breeze which distends the sail, and there you are.”

It was even as he said. A huge fan with a dozen flanges in the stern began to revolve with wonderful rapidity; in an instant the sails bellied out, and the Horace J., as his boat was named, was speeding through the waters before the breeze thus created in record-breaking fashion.

“By Jove, Billie,” I said, “this is a dandy!”

“Isn’t it!” cried an old familiar voice at my elbow.

I turned as if stung. The spirit was with me again, prepared, I doubted not, for his second twist. I sprang from my seat, a sudden inspiration flashing upon me, jumped back of the revolving fan, and turning the full force of the wind it created upon my vindictive visitant, blew him fairly and squarely into the bulging sail.

“There, blast your cockney eyes!” I cried; “take that.”

He tried to retort, but without avail. The wind that emanated from the fan fairly rammed his words back into his throat every time he opened his mouth to speak, and there he lay, flat against the canvas, fluttering like a leaf, powerless to escape.

“Hot air doesn’t affect you much, you transparent jackass!” I roared. “Let me see how a stiff nor’easter suits your style of beauty.”

•    •    •

I will not bore the reader with any further details of the Lake Worth experience. Suffice it to say that for five hours I kept the miserable thing a pneumatic prisoner in the concave surface of the sail. Try as he would, he could not escape, and finally, when Wilkins and I went ashore for the night, and the cockney ghost was released, he vanished, using unutterable language, and an idea came to me, putting which into operation, I at last secured immunity from his persecutions.

Returning to New York three days later, I leased a small office in a fireproof power building not far from Madison Square, fitted it up as if for my own use, and had placed in the concealment of a closet at its easterly end the largest electric fan I could get. It was ten feet in diameter, and was provided with sixteen flanges. When it was in motion not a thing could withstand the blast that came from it. Tables, chairs, even a cut-glass inkstand weighing two pounds, were blown with a crash against the solid stone and iron construction back of the plaster of my walls. And then I awaited his coming.

Suffice it to say that he came, sat down calmly and unsuspecting in the chair I had had made for his especial benefit, and then the moment he began to revile me I turned on the power, the fan began to revolve, the devastating wind rushed down upon him with a roar, pinned him to the wall like a butterfly on a cork, and he was at last my prisoner—and he is my prisoner still.

For three weeks has that wheel been revolving night and day, and despite all his cunning he cannot creep beyond its blustering influence, nor shall he ever creep therefrom while I have six hundred dollars per annum to pay for the rent and cost of power necessary to keep the fan going. Every once in a while I return and gloat over him; and I can tell by the movement of his lips that he is trying to curse me, but he cannot, for, even as Wilkins’s fan blew his words of remonstrance back into his throat, so does my wheel, twice as powerful, keep his torrent of invective from greeting my ear.

I should be happy to prove the truth of all this by showing any curious-minded reader the spectacle which gives me so much joy, but I fear to do so lest the owners of the building, discovering the uses to which their office has been put, shall require me to vacate the premises.

Of course he may ultimately escape, through some failure of the machine to operate, but it is guaranteed to run five years without a break, so for that period at least I am safe, and by that time it may be that he will be satisfied to call things square. I shall be satisfied if he is.

Meanwhile, I devote my successful plan to the uses of all who may be troubled as I was, finding in their assumed gratitude a sufficient compensation for my ingenuity.

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Thurlow’s
Christmas Story

I

(Being the Statement of Henry Thurlow, Author; to George Currier, Editor of the “Idler,” a Weekly Journal of Human Interest.)

I have always maintained, my dear Currier, that if a man wishes to be considered sane, and has any particular regard for his reputation as a truth-teller, he would better keep silent as to the singular experiences that enter into his life. I have had many such experiences myself; but I have rarely confided them in detail, or otherwise, to those about me, because I know that even the most trustful of my friends would regard them merely as the outcome of an imagination unrestrained by conscience, or of a gradually weakening mind subject to hallucinations. I know them to be true, but until Mr. Edison or some other modern wizard has invented a searchlight strong enough to lay bare the secrets of the mind and conscience of man, I cannot prove to others that they are not pure fabrications, or at least the conjurings of a diseased fancy. For instance, no man would believe me if I were to state to him the plain and indisputable fact that one night last month, on my way up to bed shortly after midnight, having been neither smoking nor drinking, I saw confronting me upon the stairs, with the moonlight streaming through the windows back of me, lighting up its face, a figure in which I recognized my very self in every form and feature. I might describe the chill of terror that struck to the very marrow of my bones, and well-nigh forced me to stagger backward down the stairs, as I noticed in the face of this confronting figure every indication of all the bad qualities which I know myself to possess, of every evil instinct which by no easy effort I have repressed heretofore, and realized that that thing was, as far as I knew, entirely independent of my true self, in which I hope at least the moral has made an honest fight against the immoral always. I might describe this chill, I say, as vividly as I felt it at that moment, but it would be of no use to do so, because, however realistic it might prove as a bit of description, no man would believe that the incident really happened; and yet it did happen as truly as I write, and it has happened a dozen times since, and I am certain that it will happen many times again, though I would give all that I possess to be assured that never again should that disquieting creation of mind or matter, whichever it may be, cross my path. The experience has made me afraid almost to be alone, and I have found myself unconsciously and uneasily glancing at my face in mirrors, in the plate-glass of show-windows on the shopping streets of the city, fearful lest I should find some of those evil traits which I have struggled to keep under, and have kept under so far, cropping out there where all the world, all my world, can see and wonder at, having known me always as a man of right doing and right feeling. Many a time in the night the thought has come to me with prostrating force, what if that thing were to be seen and recognized by others, myself and yet not my whole self, my unworthy self unrestrained and yet recognizable as Henry Thurlow.

I have also kept silent as to that strange condition of affairs which has tortured me in my sleep for the past year and a half; no one but myself has until this writing known that for that period of time I have had a continuous, logical dream-life; a life so vivid and so dreadfully real to me that I have found myself at times wondering which of the two lives I was living and which I was dreaming; a life in which that other wicked self has dominated, and forced me to a career of shame and horror; a life which, being taken up every time I sleep where it ceased with the awakening from a previous sleep, has made me fear to close my eyes in forgetfulness when others are near at hand, lest, sleeping, I shall let fall some speech that, striking on their ears, shall lead them to believe that in secret there is some wicked mystery connected with my life. It would be of no use for me to tell these things. It would merely serve to make my family and my friends uneasy about me if they were told in their awful detail, and so I have kept silent about them. To you alone, and now for the first time, have I hinted as to the troubles which have oppressed me for many days, and to you they are confided only because of the demand you have made that I explain to you the extraordinary complication in which the Christmas story sent you last week has involved me. You know that I am a man of dignity; that I am not a schoolboy and a lover of childish tricks; and knowing that, your friendship, at least, should have restrained your tongue and pen when, through the former, on Wednesday, you accused me of perpetrating a trifling, and to you excessively embarrassing, practical joke—a charge which, at the moment, I was too overcome to refute; and through the latter, on Thursday, you reiterated the accusation, coupled with a demand for an explanation of my conduct satisfactory to yourself, or my immediate resignation from the staff of the Idler. To explain is difficult, for I am certain that you will find the explanation too improbable for credence, but explain I must. The alternative, that of resigning from your staff, affects not only my own welfare, but that of my children, who must be provided for; and if my post with you is taken from me, then are all resources gone. I have not the courage to face dismissal, for I have not sufficient confidence in my powers to please elsewhere to make me easy in my mind, or, if I could please elsewhere, the certainty of finding the immediate employment of my talents which is necessary to me, in view of the at present overcrowded condition of the literary field.

To explain, then, my seeming jest at your expense, hopeless as it appears to be, is my task; and to do so as completely as I can, let me go back to the very beginning.

In August you informed me that you would expect me to provide, as I have heretofore been in the habit of doing, a story for the Christmas issue of the Idler; that a certain position in the make-up was reserved for me, and that you had already taken steps to advertise the fact that the story would appear. I undertook the commission, and upon seven different occasions set about putting the narrative into shape. I found great difficulty, however, in doing so. For some reason or other I could not concentrate my mind upon the work. No sooner would I start in on one story than a better one, in my estimation, would suggest itself to me; and all the labor expended on the story already begun would be cast aside, and the new story set in motion. Ideas were plenty enough, but to put them properly upon paper seemed beyond my powers. One story, however, I did finish; but after it had come back to me from my typewriter I read it, and was filled with consternation to discover that it was nothing more nor less than a mass of jumbled sentences, conveying no idea to the mind—a story which had seemed to me in the writing to be coherent had returned to me as a mere bit of incoherence—formless, without ideas—a bit of raving. It was then that I went to you and told you, as you remember, that I was worn out, and needed a month of absolute rest, which you granted. I left my work wholly, and went into the wilderness, where I could be entirely free from everything suggesting labor, and where no summons back to town could reach me. I fished and hunted. I slept; and although, as I have already said, in my sleep I found myself leading a life that was not only not to my taste, but horrible to me in many particulars, I was able at the end of my vacation to come back to town greatly refreshed, and, as far as my feelings went, ready to undertake any amount of work. For two or three days after my return I was busy with other things. On the fourth day after my arrival you came to me, and said that the story must be finished at the very latest by October 15th, and I assured you that you should have it by that time. That night I set about it. I mapped it out, incident by incident, and before starting up to bed had actually written some twelve or fifteen hundred words of the opening chapter—it was to be told in four chapters. When I had gone thus far I experienced a slight return of one of my nervous chills, and, on consulting my watch, discovered that it was after midnight, which was a sufficient explanation of my nervousness: I was merely tired. I arranged my manuscripts on my table so that I might easily take up the work the following morning. I locked up the windows and doors, turned out the lights, and proceeded upstairs to my room.

It was then that I first came face to face with myself—that other self, in which I recognized, developed to the full, every bit of my capacity for an evil life.

Conceive of the situation if you can. Imagine the horror of it, and then ask yourself if it was likely that when next morning came I could by any possibility bring myself to my worktable in fit condition to prepare for you anything at all worthy of publication in the Idler. I tried. I implore you to believe that I did not hold lightly the responsibilities of the commission you had intrusted to my hands. You must know that if any of your writers has a full appreciation of the difficulties which are strewn along the path of an editor, I, who have myself had an editorial experience, have it, and so would not, in the nature of things, do anything to add to your troubles. You cannot but believe that I have made an honest effort to fulfill my promise to you. But it was useless, and for a week after that visitation was it useless for me to attempt the work. At the end of the week I felt better, and again I started in, and the story developed satisfactorily until—it came again. That figure which was my own figure, that face which was the evil counterpart of my own countenance, again rose up before me, and once more was I plunged into hopelessness.

Thus matters went on until the 14th day of October, when I received your peremptory message that the story must be forthcoming the following day. Needless to tell you that it was not forthcoming; but what I must tell you, since you do not know it, is that on the evening of the 15th day of October a strange thing happened to me, and in the narration of that incident, which I almost despair of your believing, lies my explanation of the discovery of October 16th, which has placed my position with you in peril.

At half-past seven o’clock on the evening of October 15th I was sitting in my library trying to write. I was alone. My wife and children had gone away on a visit to Massachusetts for a week. I had just finished my cigar, and had taken my pen in hand, when my front doorbell rang. Our maid, who is usually prompt in answering summonses of this nature, apparently did not hear the bell, for she did not respond to its clanging. Again the bell rang, and still did it remain unanswered, until finally, at the third ringing, I went to the door myself. On opening it I saw standing before me a man of, I should say, fifty odd years of age, tall, slender, pale-faced, and clad in sombre black. He was entirely unknown to me. I had never seen him before, but he had about him such an air of pleasantness and wholesomeness that I instinctively felt glad to see him, without knowing why or whence he had come.

“Does Mr. Thurlow live here?” he asked.

You must excuse me for going into what may seem to you to be petty details, but by a perfectly circumstantial account of all that happened that evening alone can I hope to give a semblance of truth to my story, and that it must be truthful I realize as painfully as you do.

“I am Mr. Thurlow,” I replied.

“Henry Thurlow, the author?” he said, with a surprised look upon his face.

“Yes,” said I; and then, impelled by the strange appearance of surprise on the man’s countenance, I added, “don’t I look like an author?”

He laughed, and candidly admitted that I was not the kind of looking man he had expected to find from reading my books, and then he entered the house in response to my invitation that he do so. I ushered him into my library, and, after asking him to be seated, inquired as to his business with me.

His answer was gratifying at least He replied that he had been a reader of my writings for a number of years, and that for some time past he had had a great desire, not to say curiosity, to meet me and tell me how much he had enjoyed certain of my stories.

“I’m a great devourer of books, Mr. Thurlow,” he said, “and I have taken the keenest delight in reading your verses and humorous sketches. I may go further, and say to you that you have helped me over many a hard place in my life by your work. At times when I have felt myself worn out with my business, or face to face with some knotty problem in my career, I have found much relief in picking up and reading your books at random. They have helped me to forget my weariness or my knotty problems for the time being; and today, finding myself in this town, I resolved to call upon you this evening and thank you for all that you have done for me.”

Thereupon we became involved in a general discussion of literary men and their works, and I found that my visitor certainly did have a pretty thorough knowledge of what has been produced by the writers of today. I was quite won over to him by his simplicity, as well as attracted to him by his kindly opinion of my own efforts, and I did my best to entertain him, showing him a few of my little literary treasures in the way of autograph letters, photographs, and presentation copies of well-known books from the authors themselves. From this we drifted naturally and easily into a talk on the methods of work adopted by literary men. He asked me many questions as to my own methods; and when I had in a measure outlined to him the manner of life which I had adopted, telling him of my days at home, how little detail office-work I had, he seemed much interested with the picture—indeed, I painted the picture of my daily routine in almost too perfect colors, for, when I had finished, he observed quietly that I appeared to him to lead the ideal life, and added that he supposed I knew very little unhappiness.

The remark recalled to me the dreadful reality, that through some perversity of fate I was doomed to visitations of an uncanny order which were practically destroying my usefulness in my profession and my sole financial resource.

“Well,” I replied, as my mind reverted to the unpleasant predicament in which I found myself, “I can’t say that I know little unhappiness. As a matter of fact, I know a great deal of that undesirable thing. At the present moment I am very much embarrassed through my absolute inability to fulfill a contract into which I have entered, and which should have been filled this morning. I was due today with a Christmas story. The presses are waiting for it, and I am utterly unable to write it.”

He appeared deeply concerned at the confession. I had hoped, indeed, that he might be sufficiently concerned to take his departure, that I might make one more effort to write the promised story. His solicitude, however, showed itself in another way. Instead of leaving me, he ventured the hope that he might aid me.

“What kind of a story is it to be?” he asked.

“Oh, the usual ghostly tale,” I said, “with a dash of the Christmas flavor thrown in here and there to make it suitable to the season.”

“Ah,” he observed. “And you find your vein worked out?”

It was a direct and perhaps an impertinent question; but I thought it best to answer it, and to answer it as well without giving him any clue as to the real facts. I could not very well take an entire stranger into my confidence, and describe to him the extraordinary encounters I was having with an uncanny other self. He would not have believed the truth, hence I told him an untruth, and assented to his proposition.

“Yes,” I replied, “the vein is worked out. I have written ghost stories for years now, serious and comic, and I am today at the end of my tether—compelled to move forward and yet held back.”

“That accounts for it,” he said, simply. “When I first saw you tonight at the door I could not believe that the author who had provided me with so much merriment could be so pale and worn and seemingly mirthless. Pardon me, Mr. Thurlow, for my lack of consideration when I told you that you did not appear as I had expected to find you.”

I smiled my forgiveness, and he continued:

“It may be,” he said, with a show of hesitation—“it may be that I have come not altogether inopportunely. Perhaps I can help you.”

I smiled again. “I should be most grateful if you could,” I said.

“But you doubt my ability to do so?” he put in. “Oh—well—yes—of course you do; and why shouldn’t you? Nevertheless, I have noticed this: At times when I have been baffled in my work a mere hint from another, from one who knew nothing of my work, has carried me on to a solution of my problem. I have read most of your writings, and I have thought over some of them many a time, and I have even had ideas for stories, which, in my own conceit, I have imagined were good enough for you, and I have wished that I possessed your facility with the pen that I might make of them myself what I thought you would make of them had they been ideas of your own.”

The old gentleman’s pallid face reddened as he said this, and while I was hopeless as to anything of value resulting from his ideas, I could not resist the temptation to hear what he had to say further, his manner was so deliciously simple, and his desire to aid me so manifest. He rattled on with suggestions for a half-hour. Some of them were good, but none were new. Some were irresistibly funny, and did me good because they made me laugh, and I hadn’t laughed naturally for a period so long that it made me shudder to think of it, fearing lest I should forget how to be mirthful. Finally I grew tired of his persistence, and, with a very ill-concealed impatience, told him plainly that I could do nothing with his suggestions, thanking him, however, for the spirit of kindliness which had prompted him to offer them. He appeared somewhat hurt, but immediately desisted, and when nine o’clock came he rose up to go. As he walked to the door he seemed to be undergoing some mental struggle, to which, with a sudden resolve, he finally succumbed, for, after having picked up his hat and stick and donned his overcoat, he turned to me and said:

“Mr. Thurlow, I don’t want to offend you. On the contrary, it is my dearest wish to assist you. You have helped me, as I have told you. Why may I not help you?”

“I assure you, sir—” I began, when he interrupted me.

“One moment, please,” he said, putting his hand into the inside pocket of his black coat and extracting from it an envelope addressed to me. “Let me finish: it is the whim of one who has an affection for you. For ten years I have secretly been at work myself on a story. It is a short one, but it has seemed good to me. I had a double object in seeking you out tonight. I wanted not only to see you, but to read my story to you. No one knows that I have written it; I had intended it as a surprise to my—to my friends. I had hoped to have it published somewhere, and I had come here to seek your advice in the matter. It is a story which I have written and rewritten and rewritten time and time again in my leisure moments during the ten years past, as I have told you. It is not likely that I shall ever write another. I am proud of having done it, but I should be prouder yet if it—if it could in some way help you. I leave it with you, sir, to print or to destroy; and if you print it, to see it in type will be enough for me; to see your name signed to it will be a matter of pride to me. No one will ever be the wiser, for, as I say, no one knows I have written it, and I promise you that no one shall know of it if you decide to do as I not only suggest but ask you to do. No one would believe me after it has appeared as yours, even if I should forget my promise and claim it as my own. Take it. It is yours. You are entitled to it as a slight measure of repayment for the debt of gratitude I owe you.”

He pressed the manuscript into my hands, and before I could reply had opened the door and disappeared into the darkness of the street. I rushed to the sidewalk and shouted out to him to return, but I might as well have saved my breath and spared the neighborhood, for there was no answer. Holding his story in my hand, I reentered the house and walked back into my library, where, sitting and reflecting upon the curious interview, I realized for the first time that I was in entire ignorance as to my visitor’s name and address.

I opened the envelope hoping to find them, but they were not there. The envelope contained merely a finely written manuscript of thirty odd pages, unsigned.

And then I read the story. When I began it was with a half-smile upon my lips, and with a feeling that I was wasting my time. The smile soon faded, however; after reading the first paragraph there was no question of wasted time. The story was a masterpiece. It is needless to say to you that I am not a man of enthusiasms. It is difficult to arouse that emotion in my breast, but upon this occasion I yielded to a force too great for me to resist. I have read the tales of Hoffmann and of Poe, the wondrous romances of De La Motte Fouque, the unfortunately little-known tales of the lamented Fitz-James O’Brien, the weird tales of writers of all tongues have been thoroughly sifted by me in the course of my reading, and I say to you now that in the whole of my life I never read one story, one paragraph, one line, that could approach in vivid delineation, in weirdness of conception, in anything, in any quality which goes to make up the truly great story, that story which came into my hands as I have told you. I read it once and was amazed. I read it a second time and was—tempted. It was mine. The writer himself had authorized me to treat it as if it were my own; had voluntarily sacrificed his own claim to its authorship that he might relieve me of my very pressing embarrassment. Not only this; he had almost intimated that in putting my name to his work I should be doing him a favor. Why not do so, then, I asked myself; and immediately my better self rejected the idea as impossible. How could I put out as my own another man’s work and retain my self-respect? I resolved on another and better course—to send you the story in lieu of my own with a full statement of the circumstances under which it had come into my possession, when that demon rose up out of the floor at my side, this time more evil of aspect than before, more commanding in its manner. With a groan I shrank back into the cushions of my chair, and by passing my hands over my eyes tried to obliterate forever the offending sight; but it was useless. The uncanny thing approached me, and as truly as I write sat upon the edge of my couch, where for the first time it addressed me.

“Fool!” it said, “how can you hesitate? Here is your position: you have made a contract which must be filled; you are already behind, and in a hopeless mental state. Even granting that between this and tomorrow morning you could put together the necessary number of words to fill the space allotted to you, what kind of a thing do you think that story would make? It would be a mere raving like that other precious effort of August. The public, if by some odd chance it ever reached them, would think your mind was utterly gone; your reputation would go with that verdict. On the other hand, if you do not have the story ready by tomorrow, your hold on the Idler will be destroyed. They have their announcements printed, and your name and portrait appear among those of the prominent contributors. Do you suppose the editor and publisher will look leniently upon your failure?”

“Considering my past record, yes,” I replied. “I have never yet broken a promise to them.”

“Which is precisely the reason why they will be severe with you. You, who have been regarded as one of the few men who can do almost any kind of literary work at will—you, of whom it is said that your ‘brains are on tap’—will they be lenient with you? Bah! Can’t you see that the very fact of your invariable readiness heretofore is going to make your present unreadiness a thing incomprehensible?”

“Then what shall I do?” I asked. “If I can’t, I can’t, that is all.”

“You can. There is the story in your hands. Think what it will do for you. It is one of the immortal stories—”

“You have read it, then?” I asked.

“Haven’t you?”

“Yes—but—”

“It is the same,” it said, with a leer and a contemptuous shrug. “You and I are inseparable. Aren’t you glad?” it added, with a laugh that grated on every fiber of my being. I was too overwhelmed to reply, and it resumed: “It is one of the immortal stories. We agree to that. Published over your name, your name will live. The stuff you write yourself will give you present glory; but when you have been dead ten years people won’t remember your name even—unless I get control of you, and in that case there is a very pretty though hardly a literary record in store for you.”

Again it laughed harshly, and I buried my face in the pillows of my couch, hoping to find relief there from this dreadful vision.

“Curious,” it said. “What you call your decent self doesn’t dare look me in the eye! What a mistake people make who say that the man who won’t look you in the eye is not to be trusted! As if mere brazenness were a sign of honesty; really, the theory of decency is the most amusing thing in the world. But come, time is growing short. Take that story. The writer gave it to you. Begged you to use it as your own. It is yours. It will make your reputation, and save you with your publishers. How can you hesitate?”

“I shall not use it!” I cried, desperately.

“You must—consider your children. Suppose you lose your connection with these publishers of yours?”

“But it would be a crime.”

“Not a bit of it. Whom do you rob? A man who voluntarily came to you, and gave you that of which you rob him. Think of it as it is—and act, only act quickly. It is now midnight.”

The tempter rose up and walked to the other end of the room, whence, while he pretended to be looking over a few of my books and pictures, I was aware he was eyeing me closely, and gradually compelling me by sheer force of will to do a thing which I abhorred. And I—I struggled weakly against the temptation, but gradually, little by little, I yielded, and finally succumbed altogether. Springing to my feet, I rushed to the table, seized my pen, and signed my name to the story.

“There!” I said. “It is done. I have saved my position and made my reputation, and am now a thief!”

“As well as a fool,” said the other, calmly. “You don’t mean to say you are going to send that manuscript in as it is?”

“Good Lord!” I cried. “What under heaven have you been trying to make me do for the last half hour?”

“Act like a sane being,” said the demon. “If you send that manuscript to Currier he’ll know in a minute it isn’t yours. He knows you haven’t an amanuensis, and that handwriting isn’t yours. Copy it.”

“True!” I answered. “I haven’t much of a mind for details tonight. I will do as you say.”

I did so. I got out my pad and pen and ink, and for three hours diligently applied myself to the task of copying the story. When it was finished I went over it carefully, made a few minor corrections, signed it, put it in an envelope, addressed it to you, stamped it, and went out to the mailbox on the corner, where I dropped it into the slot, and returned home. When I had returned to my library my visitor was still there.

“Well,” it said, “I wish you’d hurry and complete this affair. I am tired, and wish to go.”

“You can’t go too soon to please me,” said I, gathering up the original manuscripts of the story and preparing to put them away in my desk.

“Probably not,” it sneered. “I’ll be glad to go too, but I can’t go until that manuscript is destroyed. As long as it exists there is evidence of your having appropriated the work of another. Why, can’t you see that? Burn it!”

“I can’t see my way clear in crime!” I retorted. “It is not in my line.”

Nevertheless, realizing the value of his advice, I thrust the pages one by one into the blazing log fire, and watched them as they flared and flamed and grew to ashes. As the last page disappeared in the embers the demon vanished. I was alone, and throwing myself down for a moment’s reflection upon my couch, was soon lost in sleep.

It was noon when I again opened my eyes, and, ten minutes after I awakened, your telegraphic summons reached me.

“Come down at once,” was what you said, and I went; and then came the terrible dénouement, and yet a dénouement which was pleasing to me since it relieved my conscience. You handed me the envelope containing the story.

“Did you send that?” was your question.

“I did—last night, or rather early this morning. I mailed it about three o’clock,” I replied.

“I demand an explanation of your conduct,” said you.

“Of what?” I asked.

“Look at your so-called story and see. If this is a practical joke, Thurlow, it’s a damned poor one.”

I opened the envelope and took from it the sheets I had sent you—twenty-four of them.

They were every one of them as blank as when they left the paper-mill!

You know the rest. You know that I tried to speak; that my utterance failed me; and that, finding myself unable at the time to control my emotions, I turned and rushed madly from the office, leaving the mystery unexplained. You know that you wrote demanding a satisfactory explanation of the situation or my resignation from your staff.

This, Currier, is my explanation. It is all I have. It is absolute truth. I beg you to believe it, for if you do not, then is my condition a hopeless one. You will ask me perhaps for a résumé of the story which I thought I had sent you.

It is my crowning misfortune that upon that point my mind is an absolute blank. I cannot remember it in form or in substance. I have racked my brains for some recollection of some small portion of it to help to make my explanation more credible, but, alas! it will not come back to me. If I were dishonest I might fake up a story to suit the purpose, but I am not dishonest. I came near to doing an unworthy act; I did do an unworthy thing, but by some mysterious provision of fate my conscience is cleared of that.

Be sympathetic Currier, or, if you cannot, be lenient with me this time. Believe, believe, believe, I implore you. Pray let me hear from you at once.

(Signed)   Henry Thurlow.

II

(Being a Note from George Currier, Editor of the “Idler,” to Henry Thurlow, Author.)

Your explanation has come to hand. As an explanation it isn’t worth the paper it is written on, but we are all agreed here that it is probably the best bit of fiction you ever wrote. It is accepted for the Christmas issue. Enclosed please find check for one hundred dollars.

Dawson suggests that you take another month up in the Adirondacks. You might put in your time writing up some account of that dream-life you are leading while you are there. It seems to me there are possibilities in the idea. The concern will pay all expenses. What do you say?

(Signed)   Yours ever, G. C.

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The Dampmere Mystery

Dawson wished to be alone; he had a tremendous bit of writing to do, which could not be done in New York, where his friends were constantly interrupting him, and that is why he had taken the little cottage at Dampmere for the early spring months. The cottage just suited him. It was remote from the village of Dampmere, and the rental was suspiciously reasonable; he could have had a ninety-nine years’ lease of it for nothing, had he chosen to ask for it, and would promise to keep the premises in repair; but he was not aware of that fact when he made his arrangements with the agent. Indeed, there was a great deal that Dawson was not aware of when he took the place. If there hadn’t been he never would have thought of going there, and this story would not have been written.

It was late in March when, with his Chinese servant and his mastiff, he entered into possession and began the writing of the story he had in mind. It was to be the effort of his life. People reading it would forget Thackeray and everybody else, and would, furthermore, never wish to see another book. It was to be the literature of all time—past and present and future; in it all previous work was to be forgotten, all future work was to be rendered unnecessary.

For three weeks everything went smoothly enough, and the work upon the great story progressed to the author’s satisfaction; but as Easter approached something queer seemed to develop in the Dampmere cottage. It was undefinable, intangible, invisible, but it was there. Dawson’s hair would not stay down. When he rose up in the morning he would find every single hair on his head standing erect, and plaster it as he would with his brushes dipped in water, it could not be induced to lie down again. More inconvenient than this, his silken mustache was affected in the same way, so that instead of drooping in a soft fascinating curl over his lip, it also rose up like a row of bayonets and lay flat against either side of his nose; and with this singular hirsute affliction there came into Dawson’s heart a feeling of apprehension over something, he knew not what, that speedily developed into an uncontrollable terror that pervaded his whole being, and more thoroughly destroyed his ability to work upon his immortal story than ten inconsiderate New York friends dropping in on him in his busy hours could possibly have done.

“What the dickens is the matter with me?” he said to himself, as for the sixteenth time he brushed his rebellious locks. “What has come over my hair? And what under the sun am I afraid of? The idea of a man of my size looking under the bed every night for—for something—burglar, spook, or what I don’t know. Waking at midnight shivering with fear, walking in the broad light of day filled with terror; by Jove! I almost wish I was Chung Lee down in the kitchen, who goes about his business undisturbed.”

Having said this, Dawson looked about him nervously. If he had expected a dagger to be plunged into his back by an unseen foe he could not have looked around more anxiously; and then he fled, actually fled in terror into the kitchen, where Chung Lee was preparing his dinner. Chung was only a Chinaman, but he was a living creature, and Dawson was afraid to be alone.

“Well, Chung,” he said, as affably as he could, “this is a pleasant change from New York, eh?”

“Plutty good,” replied Chung, with a vacant stare at the pantry door. “Me likes Noo Lork allee same. Dampeemere kind of funny, Mister Dawson.”

“Funny, Chung?” queried Dawson, observing for the first time that the Chinaman’s queue stood up as straight as a garden stake, and almost scraped the ceiling as its owner moved about. “Funny?”

“Yeppee, funny,” returned Chung, with a shiver. “Me no likee. Me flightened.”

“Oh, come!” said Dawson, with an affected lightness. “What are you afraid of?”

“Sumting,” said Chung. “Do’ know what. Go to bed; no sleepee; pigtail no stay down; heart go thump allee night.”

“By Jove!” thought Dawson; “he’s got it too!”

“Evlyting funny here,” resumed Chung.

“Jack he no likee too.”

Jack was the mastiff.

“What’s the matter with Jack?” queried Dawson. “You don’t mean to say Jack’s afraid?”

“Do’ know if he ’flaid,” said Chung, “He growl most time.”

Clearly there was no comfort for Dawson here. To rid him of his fears it was evident that Chung could be of no assistance, and Chung’s feeling that even Jack was affected by the uncanny something was by no means reassuring. Dawson went out into the yard and whistled for the dog, and in a moment the magnificent animal came bounding up. Dawson patted him on the back, but Jack, instead of rejoicing as was his wont over this token of his master’s affection, gave a yelp of pain, which was quite in accord with Dawson’s own feelings, for gentle though the pat was, his hand after it felt as though he had pressed it upon a bunch of needles.

“What’s the matter, old fellow?” said Dawson, ruefully rubbing the palm of his hand. “Did I hurt you?”

The dog tried to wag his tail, but unavailingly, and Dawson was again filled with consternation to observe that even as Chung’s queue stood high, even as his own hair would not lie down, so it was with Jack’s soft furry skin. Every hair on it was erect, from the tip of the poor beast’s nose to the end of his tail, and so stiff withal that when it was pressed from without it pricked the dog within.

“There seems to be some starch in the air of Dampmere,” said Dawson, thoughtfully, as he turned and walked slowly into the house. “I wonder what the deuce it all means?”

And then he sought his desk and tried to write, but he soon found that he could not possibly concentrate his mind upon his work. He was continually oppressed by the feeling that he was not alone. At one moment it seemed as if there were a pair of eyes peering at him from the northeast corner of the room, but as soon as he turned his own anxious gaze in that direction the difficulty seemed to lie in the southwest corner.

“Bah!” he cried, starting up and stamping his foot angrily upon the floor. “The idea! I, Charles Dawson, a man of the world, scared by—by—well, by nothing. I don’t believe in ghosts—and yet—at times I do believe that this house is haunted. My hair seems to feel the same way. It stands up like stubble in a wheat-field, and one might as well try to brush the one as the other. At this rate nothing’ll get done. I’ll go to town and see Dr. Bronson. There’s something the matter with me.”

So off Dawson went to town.

“I suppose Bronson will think I’m a fool, but I can prove all I say by my hair,” he said, as he rang the doctor’s bell. He was instantly admitted, and shortly after describing his symptoms he called the doctor’s attention to his hair.

If he had pinned his faith to this, he showed that his faith was misplaced, for when the doctor came to examine it, Dawson’s hair was lying down as softly as it ever had. The doctor looked at Dawson for a moment, and then, with a dry cough, he said:

“Dawson, I can conclude one of two things from what you tell me. Either Dampmere is haunted, which you and I as sane men can’t believe in these days, or else you are playing a practical joke on me. Now I don’t mind a practical joke at the club, my dear fellow, but here, in my office hours, I can’t afford the time to like anything of the sort. I speak frankly with you, old fellow. I have to. I hate to do it, but, after all, you’ve brought it on yourself.”

“Doctor,” Dawson rejoined, “I believe I’m a sick man, else this thing wouldn’t have happened. I solemnly assure you that I’ve come to you because I wanted a prescription, and because I believe myself badly off.”

“You carry it off well, Dawson,” said the doctor, severely, “but I’ll prescribe. Go back to Dampmere right away, and when you’ve seen the ghost, telegraph me and I’ll come down.”

With this Bronson bowed Dawson out, and the latter, poor fellow, soon found himself on the street utterly disconsolate. He could not blame Bronson. He could understand how Bronson could come to believe that, with his hair as the only witness to his woes, and a witness that failed him at the crucial moment, Bronson should regard his visit as the outcome of some club wager, in many of which he had been involved previously.

“I guess his advice is good,” said he, as he walked along. “I’ll go back right away—but meanwhile I’ll get Billie Perkins to come out and spend the night with me, and we’ll try it on him. I’ll ask him out for a few days.”

Suffice it to say that Perkins accepted, and that night found the two eating supper together outwardly serene. Perkins was quite interested when Chung brought in the supper.

“Wears his queue Pompadour, I see,” he said, as he glanced at Chung’s extraordinary headdress.

“Yes,” said Dawson, shortly.

“You wear your hair that way yourself,” he added, for he was pleased as well as astonished to note that Perkins’s hair was manifesting an upward tendency.

“Nonsense,” said Perkins. “It’s flat as a comic paper.”

“Look at yourself in the glass,” said Dawson.

Perkins obeyed. There was no doubt about it. His hair was rising! He started back uneasily.

“Dawson,” he cried, “what is it? I’ve felt queer ever since I entered your front door, and I assure you I’ve been wondering why you wore your mustache like a pirate all the evening.”

“I can’t account for it. I’ve got the creeps myself,” said Dawson, and then he told Perkins all that I have told you.

“Let’s—let’s go back to New York,” said Perkins.

“Can’t,” replied Dawson. “No train.”

“Then,” said Perkins, with a shiver, “let’s go to bed.”

The two men retired, Dawson to the room directly over the parlor, Perkins to the apartment back of it. For company they left the gas burning, and in a short time were fast asleep. An hour later Dawson awakened with a start. Two things oppressed him to the very core of his being. First, the gas was out; and second, Perkins had unmistakably groaned.

He leaped from his bed and hastened into the next room.

“Perkins,” he cried, “are you ill?”

“Is that you, Dawson?” came a voice from the darkness.

“Yes. Did—did you put out the gas?”

“No.”

“Are you ill?”

“No; but I’m deuced uncomfortable What’s this mattress stuffed with—needles?”

“Needles? No. It’s a hair mattress. Isn’t it all right?”

“Not by a great deal. I feel as if I had been sleeping on a porcupine. Light up the gas and let’s see what the trouble is.”

Dawson did as he was told, wondering meanwhile why the gas had gone out. No one had turned it out, and yet the key was unmistakably turned; and, what was worse, on ripping open Perkins’s mattress, a most disquieting state of affairs was disclosed.

Every single hair in it was standing on end!

A half-hour later four figures were to be seen wending their way northward through the darkness—two men, a huge mastiff, and a Chinaman. The group was made up of Dawson, his guest, his servant, and his dog. Dampmere was impossible; there was no train until morning, but not one of them was willing to remain a moment longer at Dampmere, and so they had to walk.

“What do you suppose it was?” asked Perkins, as they left the third mile behind them.

“I don’t know,” said Dawson; “but it must be something terrible. I don’t mind a ghost that will make the hair of living beings stand on end, but a nameless invisible something that affects a mattress that way has a terrible potency that I have no desire to combat. It’s a mystery, and, as a rule, I like mysteries, but the mystery of Dampmere I’d rather let alone.”

“Don’t say a word about the—ah—the mattress, Charlie,” said Perkins, after awhile. “The fellows’ll never believe it.”

“No. I was thinking that very same thing,” said Dawson.

And they were both true to Dawson’s resolve, which is possibly why the mystery of Dampmere has never been solved.

If any of my readers can furnish a solution, I wish they would do so, for I am very much interested in the case, and I truly hate to leave a story of this kind in so unsatisfactory a condition.

A ghost story without any solution strikes me as being about as useful as a house without a roof.

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Carleton Barker,
First and Second

My first meeting with Carleton Barker was a singular one. A friend and I, in August, 18—, were doing the English Lake District on foot, when, on nearing the base of the famous Mount Skiddaw, we observed on the road, some distance ahead of us, limping along and apparently in great pain, the man whose subsequent career so sorely puzzled us. Noting his very evident distress, Parton and I quickened our pace and soon caught up with the stranger, who, as we reached his side, fell forward upon his face in a fainting condition—as well he might, for not only must he have suffered great agony from a sprained ankle, but inspection of his person disclosed a most extraordinary gash in his right arm, made apparently with a sharp knife, and which was bleeding most profusely. To stanch the flow of blood was our first care, and Parton, having recently been graduated in medicine, made short work of relieving the sufferer’s pain from his ankle, bandaging it about and applying such soothing properties as he had in his knapsack—properties, by the way, with which, knowing the small perils to which pedestrians everywhere are liable, he was always provided.

Our patient soon recovered his senses and evinced no little gratitude for the service we had rendered him, insisting upon our accepting at his hands, merely, he said, as a souvenir of our good-Samaritanship, and as a token of his appreciation of the same, a small pocket-flask and an odd diamond-shaped stone pierced in the center, which had hung from the end of his watch-chain, held in place by a minute gold ring. The flask became the property of Parton, and to me fell the stone, the exact hue of which I was never able to determine, since it was chameleonic in its properties. When it was placed in my hands by our “grateful patient” it was blood-red; when I looked upon it on the following morning it was of a livid, indescribable hue, yet lustrous as an opal. Today it is colorless and dull, as though some animating quality that it had once possessed had forever passed from it.

“You seem to have met with an accident,” said Parton, when the injured man had recovered sufficiently to speak.

“Yes,” he said, wincing with pain, “I have. I set out for Saddleback this morning—I wished to visit the Scales Tarn and get a glimpse of those noonday stars that are said to make its waters lustrous, and—”

“And to catch the immortal fish?” I queried.

“No,” he replied, with a laugh. “I should have been satisfied to see the stars—and I did see the stars, but not the ones I set out to see. I have always been more or less careless of my safety, walking with my head in the clouds and letting my feet look out for themselves. The result was that I slipped on a moss-covered stone and fell over a very picturesque bit of scenery on to some more stones that, unfortunately, were not moss-covered.”

“But the cut in your arm?” said Parton, suspiciously. “That looks as if somebody else had given it to you.”

The stranger’s face flushed as red as could be considering the amount of blood he had lost, and a look of absolute devilishness that made my flesh creep came into his eyes. For a moment he did not speak, and then, covering the delay in his answer with a groan of anguish, he said:

“Oh, that! Yes—I—I did manage to cut myself rather badly and—”

“I don’t see how you could, though,” insisted Parton. “You couldn’t reach that part of yourself with a knife, if you tried.”

“That’s just the reason why you should see for yourself that it was caused by my falling on my knife. I had it grasped in my right hand, intending to cut myself a stick, when I slipped. As I slipped it flew from my hand and I landed on it, fortunately on the edge and not on the point,” he explained, his manner far from convincing, though the explanation seemed so simple that to doubt it were useless.

“Did you recover the knife?” asked Parton. “It must have been a mighty sharp one, and rather larger than most people carry about with them on excursions like yours.”

“I am not on the witness-stand, sir,” returned the other, somewhat petulantly, “and so I fail to see why you should question me so closely in regard to so simple a matter—as though you suspected me of some wrongdoing.”

“My friend is a doctor,” I explained; for while I was quite as much interested in the incident, its whys and wherefores, as was Parton, I had myself noticed that he was suspicious of his chance patient, and seemingly not so sympathetic as he would otherwise have been. “He regards you as a case.”

“Not at all,” returned Parton. “I am simply interested to know how you hurt yourself—that is all. I mean no offense, I am sure, and if anything I have said has hurt your feelings I apologize.”

“Don’t mention it, doctor,” replied the other, with an uneasy smile, holding his left hand out towards Parton as he spoke. “I am in great pain, as you know, and perhaps I seem irritable. I’m not an amiable man at best; as for the knife, in my agony I never thought to look for it again, though I suppose if I had looked I should not have found it, since it doubtless fell into the underbrush out of sight. Let it rest there. It has not done me a friendly service today and I shall waste no tears over it.”

With which effort at pleasantry he rose with some difficulty to his feet, and with the assistance of Parton and myself walked on and into Keswick, where we stopped for the night. The stranger registered directly ahead of Parton and myself, writing the words, “Carleton Barker, Calcutta,” in the book, and immediately retired to his room, nor did we see him again that night. After supper we looked for him, but as he was nowhere to be seen, we concluded that he had gone to bed to seek the recuperation of rest. Parton and I lit our cigars and, though somewhat fatigued by our exertions, strolled quietly about the more or less somnolent burg in which we were, discussing the events of the day, and chiefly our new acquaintance.

“I don’t half like that fellow,” said Parton, with a dubious shake of the head. “If a dead body should turn up near or on Skiddaw tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t like to wager that Mr. Carleton Barker hadn’t put it there. He acted to me like a man who had something to conceal, and if I could have done it without seeming ungracious, I’d have flung his old flask as far into the fields as I could. I’ve half a mind to show my contempt for it now by filling it with some of that beastly claret they have at the table d’hôte here, and chucking the whole thing into the lake. It was an insult to offer those things to us.”

“I think you are unjust, Parton,” I said. “He certainly did look as if he had been in a maul with somebody. There was a nasty scratch on his face, and that cut on the arm was suspicious; but I can’t see but that his explanation was clear enough. Your manner was too irritating. I think if I had met with an accident and was assisted by an utter stranger who, after placing me under obligations to him, acted towards me as though I were an unconvicted criminal, I’d be as mad as he was; and as for the insult of his offering, in my eyes that was the only way he could soothe his injured feelings. He was angry at your suspicions, and to be entirely your debtor for services didn’t please him. His gift to me was made simply because he did not wish to pay you in substance and me in thanks.”

“I don’t go so far as to call him an unconvicted criminal, but I’ll swear his record isn’t clear as daylight, and I’m morally convinced that if men’s deeds were written on their foreheads Carleton Barker, esquire, would wear his hat down over his eyes. I don’t like him. I instinctively dislike him. Did you see the look in his eyes when I mentioned the knife?”

“I did,” I replied. “And it made me shudder.”

“It turned every drop of blood in my veins cold,” said Parton. “It made me feel that if he had had that knife within reach he would have trampled it to powder, even if every stamp of his foot cut his flesh through to the bone. Malignant is the word to describe that glance, and I’d rather encounter a rattle-snake than see it again.”

Parton spoke with such evident earnestness that I took refuge in silence. I could see just where a man of Parton’s temperament—which was cold and eminently judicial even when his affections were concerned—could find that in Barker at which to cavil, but, for all that, I could not sympathize with the extreme view he took of his character. I have known many a man upon whose face nature has set the stamp of the villain much more deeply than it was impressed upon Barker’s countenance, who has lived a life most irreproachable, whose every act has been one of unselfishness and for the good of mankind; and I have also seen outward appearing saints whose every instinct was base; and it seemed to me that the physiognomy of the unfortunate victim of the moss-covered rock and vindictive knife was just enough of a medium between that of the irredeemable sinner and the sterling saint to indicate that its owner was the average man in the matter of vices and virtues. In fact, the malignancy of his expression when the knife was mentioned was to me the sole point against him, and had I been in his position I do not think I should have acted very differently, though I must add that if I thought myself capable of freezing any person’s blood with an expression of my eyes I should be strongly tempted to wear blue glasses when in company or before a mirror.

“I think I’ll send my card up to him, Jack,” I said to Parton, when we had returned to the hotel, “just to ask how he is. Wouldn’t you?”

“No!” snapped Parton. “But then I’m not you. You can do as you please. Don’t let me influence you against him—if he’s to your taste.”

“He isn’t at all to my taste,” I retorted. “I don’t care for him particularly, but it seems to me courtesy requires that we show a little interest in his welfare.”

“Be courteous, then, and show your interest,” said Parton. “I don’t care as long as I am not dragged into it.”

I sent my card up by the boy, who, returning in a moment, said that the door was locked, adding that when he had knocked upon it there came no answer, from which he presumed that Mr. Barker had gone to sleep.

“He seemed all right when you took his supper to his room?” I queried.

“He said he wouldn’t have any supper. Just wanted to be left alone,” said the boy.

“Sulking over the knife still, I imagine,” sneered Parton; and then he and I retired to our room and prepared for bed.

I do not suppose I had slept for more than an hour when I was awakened by Parton, who was pacing the floor like a caged tiger, his eyes all ablaze, and laboring under an intense nervous excitement.

“What’s the matter, Jack?” I asked, sitting up in bed.

“That damned Barker has upset my nerves,” he replied. “I can’t get him out of my mind.”

“Oh, pshaw!” I replied. “Don’t be silly. Forget him.”

“Silly?” he retorted, angrily. “Silly? Forget him? Hang it, I would forget him if he’d let me—but he won’t.”

“What has he got to do with it?”

“More than is decent,” ejaculated Parton. “More than is decent. He has just been peering in through that window there, and he means no good.”

“Why, you’re mad,” I remonstrated. “He couldn’t peer in at the window—we are on the fourth floor, and there is no possible way in which he could reach the window, much less peer in at it.”

“Nevertheless,” insisted Parton, “Carleton Barker for ten minutes previous to your waking was peering in at me through that window there, and in his glance was that same malignant, hateful quality that so set me against him today—and another thing, Bob,” added Parton, stopping his nervous walk for a moment and shaking his finger impressively at me—“another thing which I did not tell you before because I thought it would fill you with that same awful dread that has come to me since meeting Barker—the blood from that man’s arm, the blood that stained his shirt-sleeve crimson, that besmeared his clothes, spurted out upon my cuff and coat-sleeve when I strove to stanch its flow!”

“Yes, I remember that,” said I.

“And now look at my cuff and sleeve!” whispered Parton, his face grown white.

I looked.

There was no stain of any sort whatsoever upon either!

Certainly there must have been something wrong about Carleton Barker.

II

The mystery of Carleton Barker was by no means lessened when next morning it was found that his room not only was empty, but that, as far as one could judge from the aspect of things therein, it had not been occupied at all. Furthermore, our chance acquaintance had vanished, leaving no more trace of his whereabouts than if he had never existed.

“Good riddance,” said Parton. “I am afraid he and I would have come to blows sooner or later, because the mere thought of him was beginning to inspire me with a desire to thrash him. I’m sure he deserves a trouncing, whoever he is.”

I, too, was glad the fellow had passed out of our ken, but not for the reason advanced by Parton. Since the discovery of the stainless cuff, where marks of blood ought by nature to have been, I goose-fleshed at the mention of his name. There was something so inexpressibly uncanny about a creature having a fluid of that sort in his veins. In fact, so unpleasantly was I impressed by that episode that I was unwilling even to join in a search for the mysteriously missing Barker, and by common consent Parton and I dropped him entirely as a subject for conversation.

We spent the balance of our week at Keswick, using it as our headquarters for little trips about the surrounding country, which is most charmingly adapted to the wants of those inclined to pedestrianism, and on Sunday evening began preparations for our departure, discarding our knickerbockers and resuming the habiliments of urban life, intending on Monday morning to run up to Edinburgh, there to while away a few days before starting for a short trip through the Trossachs.

While engaged in packing our portmanteaux there came a sharp knock at the door, and upon opening it I found upon the hall floor an envelope addressed to myself. There was no one anywhere in the hall, and, so quickly had I opened the door after the knock, that fact mystified me. It would hardly have been possible for any person, however nimble of foot, to have passed out of sight in the period which had elapsed between the summons and my response.

“What is it?” asked Parton, observing that I was slightly agitated.

“Nothing,” I said, desirous of concealing from him the matter that bothered me, lest I should be laughed at for my pains. “Nothing, except a letter for me.”

“Not by post, is it?” he queried; to which he added, “Can’t be. There is no mail here today. Some friend?”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying, in a somewhat feminine fashion, to solve the authorship of the letter before opening it by staring at the superscription. “I don’t recognize the handwriting at all.”

I then opened the letter, and glancing hastily at the signature was filled with uneasiness to see who my correspondent was.

“It’s from that fellow Barker,” I said.

“Barker!” cried Parton. “What on earth has Barker been writing to you about?”

“He is in trouble,” I replied, as I read the letter.

“Financial, I presume, and wants a lift?” suggested Parton.

“Worse than that,” said I, “he is in prison in London.”

“Wha-a-at?” ejaculated Parton. “In prison in London? What for?”

“On suspicion of having murdered an innkeeper in the South of England on Tuesday, August 16th.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say that I believe he was guilty,” returned Parton, without reflecting that the 16th day of August was the day upon which he and I had first encountered Barker.

“That’s your prejudice, Jack,” said I. “If you’ll think a minute you’ll know he was innocent. He was here on August 16th—last Tuesday. It was then that you and I saw him for the first time limping along the road and bleeding from a wound in the shoulder.”

“Was Tuesday the 16th?” said Parton, counting the days backward on his fingers. “That’s a fact. It was—but it’s none of my affair anyhow. It is too blessed queer for me to mix myself up in it, and I say let him languish in jail. He deserved it for something, I am sure-”

“Well, I’m not so confoundedly heartless,” I returned, pounding the table with my fist, indignant that Parton should allow his prejudices to run away with his sense of justice. “I’m going to London to do as he asks.”

“What does he want you to do? Prove an alibi?”

“Precisely; and I’m going and you’re going, and I shall see if the landlord here won’t let me take one of his boys along to support our testimony—at my own expense if need be.”

“You’re right, old chap,” returned Parton, after a moment of internal struggle. “I suppose we really ought to help the fellow out of his scrape; but I’m decidedly averse to getting mixed up in an affair of any kind with a man like Carleton Barker, much less in an affair with murder in it. Is he specific about the murder?”

“No. He refers me to the London papers of the 17th and 18th for details. He hadn’t time to write more, because he comes up for examination on Tuesday morning, and as our presence is essential to his case he was necessarily hurried.”

“It’s deucedly hard luck for us,” said Parton, ruefully. “It means no Scotland this trip.”

“How about Barker’s luck?” I asked. “He isn’t fighting for a Scottish trip—he’s fighting for his life.”

And so it happened that on Monday morning, instead of starting for Edinburgh, we boarded the train for London at Carlisle. We tried to get copies of the newspapers containing accounts of the crime that had been committed, but our efforts were unavailing, and it was not until we arrived in London and were visited by Barker’s attorneys that we obtained any detailed information whatsoever of the murder; and when we did get it we were more than ever regretful to be mixed up in it, for it was an unusually brutal murder. Strange to say, the evidence against Barker was extraordinarily convincing, considering that at the time of the commission of the crime he was hundreds of miles from the scene. There was testimony from railway guards, neighbors of the murdered innkeeper, and others, that it was Barker and no one else who committed the crime. His identification was complete, and the wound in his shoulder was shown almost beyond the possibility of doubt to have been inflicted by the murdered man in self-defense.

“Our only hope,” said the attorney, gravely, “is in proving an alibi. I do not know what to believe myself, the chain of evidence against my client is so complete; and yet he asserts his innocence, and has stated to me that you two gentlemen could assist in proving it. If you actually encountered Carleton Barker in the neighborhood of Keswick on the 16th of this month, the whole case against him falls to the ground. If not, I fear his outlook has the gallows at the small end of the perspective.”

“We certainly did meet a Carleton Barker at Keswick on Tuesday, August 16th,” returned Parton; “and he was wounded in the shoulder, and his appearance was what might have been expected of one who had been through just such a frightful murder as we understand this to have been; but this was explained to us as due to a fall over rocks in the vicinity of the Scales Tarn—which was plausible enough to satisfy my friend here.”

“And not yourself?” queried the attorney.

“Well, I don’t see what that has to do with it,” returned Parton. “As to the locality there is no question. He was there. We saw him, and others saw him, and we have taken the trouble to come down here to state the fact, and have brought with us the call-boy from the hotel, who can support our testimony if it is not regarded as sufficient. I advise you, however, as attorney for Barker, not to inquire too deeply into that matter, because I am convinced that if he isn’t guilty of this crime—as of course he is not—he hasn’t the cleanest record in the world. He has bad written on every line of his face, and there were one or two things connected with our meeting with him that mightn’t be to his taste to have mentioned in court.”

“I don’t need advice, thank you,” said the attorney, dryly. “I wish simply to establish the fact of his presence at Keswick at the hour of 5 p.m. on Tuesday, August 16th. That was the hour at which the murder is supposed—in fact, is proved—to have been committed. At 5:30, according to witnesses, my client was seen in the neighborhood, faint with loss of blood from a knife-wound in the shoulder. Barker has the knife-wound, but he might have a dozen of them and be acquitted if he wasn’t in Frewenton on the day in question.”

“You may rely upon us to prove that,” said I. “We will swear to it. We can produce tangible objects presented to us on that afternoon by Barker—”

“I can’t produce mine,” said Parton. “I threw it into the lake.”

“Well, I can produce the stone he gave me,” said I, “and I’ll do it if you wish.”

“That will be sufficient, I think,” returned the attorney. “Barker spoke especially about that stone, for it was a half of an odd souvenir of the East, where he was born, and he fortunately has the other half. The two will fit together at the point where the break was made, and our case will be complete.”

The attorney then left us. The following day we appeared at the preliminary examination, which proved to be the whole examination as well, since, despite the damning circumstantial evidence against Barker, evidence which shook my belief almost in the veracity of my own eyes, our plain statements, substantiated by the evidence of the call-boy and the two halves of the oriental pebble, one in my possession and the other in Barker’s, brought about the discharge of the prisoner from custody; and the “Frewenton Atrocity” became one of many horrible murders, the mystery of which time alone, if anything, could unravel.

After Barker was released he came to me and thanked me most effusively for the service rendered him, and in many ways made himself agreeable during the balance of our stay in London. Parton, however, would have nothing to do with him, and to me most of his attentions were paid. He always had a singularly uneasy way about him, as though he were afraid of some impending trouble, and finally after a day spent with him slumming about London—and a more perfect slummer no one ever saw, for he was apparently familiar with every one of the worst and lowest resorts in all of London as well as on intimate terms with leaders in the criminal world—I put a few questions to him impertinently pertinent to himself. He was surprisingly frank in his answers. I was quite prepared for a more or less indignant refusal when I asked him to account for his intimacy with these dregs of civilization.

“It’s a long story,” he said, “but I’ll tell it to you. Let us run in here and have a chop, and I’ll give you some account of myself over a mug of ale.”

We entered one of the numerous small eating-houses that make London a delight to the lover of the chop in the fullness of its glory. When we were seated and the luncheon ordered Barker began.

“I have led a very unhappy life. I was born in India thirty-nine years ago, and while my every act has been as open and as free of wrong as are those of an infant, I have constantly been beset by such untoward affairs as this in which you have rendered such inestimable service. At the age of five, in Calcutta, I was in peril of my liberty on the score of depravity, although I never committed any act that could in any sense be called depraved. The main cause of my trouble at that time was a small girl of ten whose sight was partially destroyed by the fiendish act of someone who, according to her statement, wantonly hurled a piece of broken glass into one of her eyes. The girl said it was I who did it, although at the time it was done, according to my mother’s testimony, I was playing in her room and in her plain view. That alone would not have been a very serious matter for me, because the injured child might have been herself responsible for her injury, but in a childish spirit of fear, afraid to say so, and, not realizing the enormity of the charge, have laid it at the door of any one of her playmates she saw fit. She stuck to her story, however, and there were many who believed that she spoke the truth and that my mother, in an endeavor to keep me out of trouble, had stated what was not true.”

“But you were innocent, of course?” I said.

“I am sorry you think it necessary to ask that,” he replied, his pallid face flushing with a not unnatural indignation; “and I decline to answer it,” he added. “I have made a practice of late, when I am in trouble or in any way under suspicion, to let others do my pleading and prove my innocence. But you didn’t mean to be like your friend Parton, I know, and I cannot be angry with a man who has done so much for me as you have—so let it pass. I was saying that standing alone the accusation of that young girl would not have been serious in its effects in view of my mother’s testimony, had not a seeming corroboration come three days later, when another child was reported to have been pushed over an embankment and maimed for life by no less a person than my poor innocent self. This time I was again, on my mother’s testimony, at her side; but there were witnesses of the crime, and they every one of them swore to my guilt, and as a consequence we found it advisable to leave the home that had been ours since my birth, and to come to England. My father had contemplated returning to his own country for some time, and the reputation that I had managed unwittingly to build up for myself in Calcutta was of a sort that made it easier for him to make up his mind. He at first swore that he would ferret out the mystery in the matter, and would go through Calcutta with a dragnet if necessary to find the possible other boy who so resembled me that his outrageous acts were put upon my shoulders; but people had begun to make up their minds that there was not only something wrong about me, but that my mother knew it and had tried to get me out of my scrapes by lying—so there was nothing for us to do but leave.”

“And you never solved the mystery?” I queried.

“Well, not exactly,” returned Barker, gazing abstractedly before him. “Not exactly; but I have a theory, based upon the bitterest kind of experience, that I know what the trouble is.”

“You have a double?” I asked.

“You are a good guesser,” he replied; “and of all unhanged criminals he is the very worst.”

There was a strange smile on his lips as Carleton Barker said this. His tone was almost that of one who was boasting—in fact, so strongly was I impressed with his appearance of conceit when he estimated the character of his double, that I felt bold enough to say:

“You seem to be a little proud of it, in spite of all.”

Barker laughed.

“I can’t help it, though he has kept me on tenterhooks for a lifetime,” he said. “We all feel a certain amount of pride in the success of those to whom we are related, either by family ties or other shackles like those with which I am bound to my murderous alter ego. I knew an Englishman once who was so impressed with the notion that he resembled the great Napoleon that he conceived the most ardent hatred for his own country for having sent the illustrious Frenchman to St. Helena. The same influence—a very subtle one—I feel. Here is a man who has maimed and robbed and murdered for years, and has never yet been apprehended. In his chosen calling he has been successful, and though I have been put to my trumps many a time to save my neck from the retribution that should have been his, I can’t help admiring the fellow, though I’d kill him if he stood before me!”

“And are you making any effort to find him?”

“I am, of course,” said Barker; “that has been my lifework. I am fortunately possessed of means enough to live on, so that I can devote all my time to unraveling the mystery. It is for this reason that I have acquainted myself with the element of London with which, as you have noticed, I am very familiar. The life these criminals are leading is quite as revolting to me as it is to you, and the scenes you and I have witnessed together are no more unpleasant to you than they are to me; but what can I do? The man lives and must be run down. He is in England, I am certain. This latest diversion of his has convinced me of that.”

“Well,” said I, rising, “you certainly have my sympathy, Mr. Barker, and I hope your efforts will meet with success. I trust you will have the pleasure of seeing the other gentleman hanged.”

“Thank you,” he said, with a queer look in his eyes, which, as I thought it over afterwards, did not seem to be quite as appropriate to his expression of gratitude as it might have been.

III

When Barker and I parted that day it was for a longer period than either of us dreamed, for upon my arrival at my lodgings I found there a cable message from New York, calling me back to my labors. Three days later I sailed for home, and five years elapsed before I was so fortunate as to renew my acquaintance with foreign climes. Occasionally through these years Parton and I discussed Barker, and at no time did my companion show anything but an increased animosity towards our strange Keswick acquaintance. The mention of his name was sufficient to drive Parton from the height of exuberance to a state of abject depression.

“I shall not feel easy while that man lives,” he said. “I think he is a minion of Satan. There is nothing earthly about him.”

“Nonsense,” said I. “Just because a man has a bad face is no reason for supposing him a villain or a supernatural creature.”

“No,” Parton answered; “but when a man’s veins hold blood that saturates and leaves no stain, what are we to think?”

I confessed that this was a point beyond me, and, by mutual consent, we dropped the subject.

One night Parton came to my rooms white as a sheet, and so agitated that for a few minutes he could not speak. He dropped, shaking like a leaf, into my reading-chair and buried his face in his hands. His attitude was that of one frightened to the very core of his being. When I questioned him first he did not respond. He simply groaned. I resumed my reading for a few moments, and then looking up observed that Parton had recovered somewhat and was now gazing abstractedly into the fire.

“Well,” I said, “feeling better?”

“Yes,” he answered, slowly. “But it was a shock.”

“What was?” I asked. “You’ve told me nothing as yet.”

“I’ve seen Barker.”

“No!” I cried. “Where?”

“In a back alley downtown, where I had to go on a hospital call. There was a row in a gambling-hell in Hester Street. Two men were cut and I had to go with the ambulance. Both men will probably die, and no one can find any trace of the murderer; but I know who he is. He was Carleton Barker and no one else. I passed him in the alley on the way in, and I saw him in the crowd when I came out.”

“Was he alone in the alley?” I asked. Parton groaned again.

“That’s the worst of it,” said he. “He was not alone. He was with Carleton Barker.”

“You speak in riddles,” said I.

“I saw in riddles,” said Parton; “for as truly as I sit here there were two of them, and they stood side by side as I passed through, alike as two peas, and crime written on the pallid face of each.”

“Did Barker recognize you?”

“I think so, for as I passed he gasped—both of them gasped, and as I stopped to speak to the one I had first recognized he had vanished as completely as though he had never been, and as I turned to address the other he was shambling off into the darkness as fast as his legs could carry him.”

I was stunned. Barker had been mysterious enough in London. In New York with his double, and again connected with an atrocity, he became even more so, and I began to feel somewhat towards him as had Parton from the first. The papers next morning were not very explicit on the subject of the Hester Street trouble, but they confirmed Parton’s suspicions in his and my own mind as to whom the assassins were. The accounts published simply stated that the wounded men, one of whom had died in the night and the other of whom would doubtless not live through the day, had been set upon and stabbed by two unknown Englishmen who had charged them with cheating at cards; that the assailants had disappeared, and that the police had no clue as to their whereabouts.

Time passed and nothing further came to light concerning the Barkers, and gradually Parton and I came to forget them. The following summer I went abroad again, and then came the climax to the Barker episode, as we called it. I can best tell the story of that climax by printing here a letter written by myself to Parton. It was penned within an hour of the supreme moment, and while it evidences my own mental perturbation in its lack of coherence, it is nonetheless an absolutely truthful account of what happened. The letter is as follows:

London, July 18, 18—

My dear Parton,—You once said to me that you could not breathe easily while this world held Carleton Barker living. You may now draw an easy breath, and many of them, for the Barker episode is over. Barker is dead, and I flatter myself that I am doing very well myself to live sanely after the experiences of this morning.

About a week after my arrival in England a horrible tragedy was enacted in the Seven Dials district. A woman was the victim, and a devil in human form the perpetrator of the crime. The poor creature was literally hacked to pieces in a manner suggesting the hand of Jack the Ripper, but in this instance the murderer, unlike Jack, was caught red-handed, and turned out to be no less a person than Carleton Barker. He was tried and convicted, and sentenced to be hanged at twelve o’clock today.

When I heard of Barker’s trouble I went, as a matter of curiosity solely, to the trial, and discovered in the dock the man you and I had encountered at Keswick. That is to say, he resembled our friend in every possible respect. If he were not Barker he was the most perfect imitation of Barker conceivable. Not a feature of our Barker but was reproduced in this one, even to the name. But he failed to recognize me. He saw me, I know, because I felt his eyes upon me, but in trying to return his gaze I quailed utterly before him. I could not look him in the eye without a feeling of the most deadly horror, but I did see enough of him to note that he regarded me only as one of a thousand spectators who had flocked into the courtroom during the progress of the trial. If it were our Barker who sat there his dissemblance was remarkable. So coldly did he look at me that I began to doubt if he really were the man we had met; but the events of this morning have changed my mind utterly on that point. He was the one we had met, and I am now convinced that his story to me of his double was purely fictitious, and that from beginning to end there has been but one Barker.

The trial was a speedy one. There was nothing to be said in behalf of the prisoner, and within five days of his arraignment he was convicted and sentenced to the extreme penalty—that of hanging—and noon today was the hour appointed for the execution. I was to have gone to Richmond today by coach, but since Barker’s trial I have been in a measure depressed. I have grown to dislike the man as thoroughly as did you, and yet I was very much affected by the thought that he was finally to meet death upon the scaffold. I could not bring myself to participate in any pleasures on the day of his execution, and in consequence I gave up my Richmond journey and remained all morning in my lodgings trying to read. It was a miserable effort. I could not concentrate my mind upon my book—no book could have held the slightest part of my attention at that time. My thoughts were all for Carleton Barker, and I doubt if, when the clock hands pointed to half after eleven, Barker himself was more apprehensive over what was to come than I. I found myself holding my watch in my hand, gazing at the dial and counting the seconds which must intervene before the last dreadful scene of a life of crime. I would rise from my chair and pace my room nervously for a few minutes; then I would throw myself into my chair again and stare at my watch. This went on nearly all the morning—in fact, until ten minutes before twelve, when there came a slight knock at my door. I put aside my nervousness as well as I could, and, walking to the door, opened it.

I wonder that I have nerve to write of it, Parton, but there upon the threshold, clad in the deepest black, his face pallid as the head of death itself and his hands shaking like those of a palsied man, stood no less a person than Carleton Barker!

I staggered back in amazement and he followed me, closing the door and locking it behind him.

“What would you do?” I cried, regarding his act with alarm, for, candidly, I was almost abject with fear.

“Nothing—to you!” he said. “You have been as far as you could be my friend. The other, your companion of Keswick”—meaning you, of course—“was my enemy.”

I was glad you were not with us, my dear Parton. I should have trembled for your safety.

“How have you managed to escape?” I asked.

“I have not escaped,” returned Barker. “But I soon shall be free from my accursed double.”

Here he gave an unearthly laugh and pointed to the clock.

“Ha, ha!” he cried. “Five minutes more—five minutes more and I shall be free.”

“Then the man in the dock was not you?” I asked.

“The man in the dock,” he answered, slowly, “is even now mounting the gallows, whilst I stand here.”

He trembled a little as he spoke, and lurched forward like a drunken man; but he soon recovered himself, grasping the back of my chair convulsively with his long white fingers.

“In two minutes more,” he whispered, “the rope will be adjusted about his neck; the black cap is even now being drawn over his cursed features, and—”

Here he shrieked with laughter, and, rushing to the window, thrust his head out and literally sucked the air into his lungs, as a man with a parched throat would have drank water. Then he turned and, tottering back to my side, hoarsely demanded some brandy.

It was fortunately at hand, and precisely as the big bells in Westminster began to sound the hour of noon, he caught up the goblet and held it aloft.

“To him!” he cried.

And then, Parton, standing before me in my lodgings, as truly as I write, he remained fixed and rigid until the twelfth stroke of the bells sounded, when he literally faded from my sight, and the goblet, falling to the floor, was shattered into countless atoms!

~

Over the Plum-Pudding

CONTENTS:

“Over the Plum-Pudding”
Bills, M.D.
The Flunking of Watkins’s Ghost
An Unmailed Letter
The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks
A Glance Ahead
Hans Pumpernickel’s Vigil
The Affliction of Baron Humpfelhimmel
A Great Composer
How Fritz Became a Wizard
Rise and Fall of the Poet Gregory
The Loss of the “Gretchen B.”

“Over the Plum-Pudding”

Why it was Never Published.
An Authoritative Statement by its Editor.

On the eve of his departure for Manila, where he is shortly to begin the publication of a comic paper, my friend Mr. Horace Wilkinson, late literary adviser of Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway, the publishers, sent to me the following pages of manuscript with the request that I should have them published for the benefit of those whom the story may concern. I have cheerfully accepted the commission, desiring it to be distinctly understood, however, that I am in no sense responsible for Mr. Wilkinson’s statements either of fact or of opinion. I am merely the medium through whom his explanation is brought to the public eye.

J. K. B.

«

»

“Over the
Plum-Pudding”

I

I have been asked so often and by so many persons known and unknown to me why it was that a Christmas book that was to have been issued some years ago under my editorial supervision never appeared, although announced as ready for immediate publication, that I feel that I should make some statement in explanation of the seeming deception. The matter was very annoying, both to my publishers and to myself at the time it happened, and while I was anxious then to make public a full and candid statement of the facts as they occurred, Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway deemed it the wiser course to let the affair rest for a year or two anyhow. They failed to see my point of view, that, while they were responsible for the advertisement, I was assumed to be responsible for the book, and in the event of its failure to appear it would naturally be inferred by the public that my work had not proven sufficiently up to standard to warrant them in continuing the venture. I did not press the matter, however, being too busy on other affairs to give to it the attention it deserved, and until now no opportunity to explain my connection with the unfortunate volume has arisen. I should hesitate even at this late date to give a wide publicity to the incident were it not that my mail has lately been overburdened by rather peremptory requests from the several contributors to the volume to be informed what had become of the tales they wrote and for which they were to be paid on publication. Ordinarily, letters of this kind I should refer to my business principals, the publishers themselves, but in this emergency it happens, unfortunately for me, that the publishers have been retired from business and are now engaged in other pursuits: one of them at the Klondike, another as a veterinary surgeon-general at Santiago, on the appointment of the Secretary of War, and the third living somewhere abroad incog. as the result of his having drawn out all the capital of his partners and fled one early spring morning two years ago, leaving behind him his best wishes and about eight thousand dollars in debts for his partners to pay. It therefore devolves on me to explain to the irate authors as best I can what happened. The explanation may not be shirked, for they are wholly within their rights in demanding it. My only hope is that they will be satisfied with my statement, although I am quite conscious, sadly so, of the fact that to certain suspicious minds it may seem to lack credibility.

II

To begin, I will place the responsibility for the whole affair where it belongs. It was the fault of no less a person than Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Mr. Andrew Lang’s connection with the episode, of course, involved us in the final catastrophe, but he is not to blame. Mr. Kipling started the whole affair, and if Mulvaney and Ortheris and Learoyd had behaved themselves properly the book would now be resting calmly upon many an appreciative library shelf, instead of being, as it is, but a sorrowful memory and a possible cause for a series of international lawsuits.

This fact being understood as the basis of my argument, I will proceed to prove it; and to do so properly I must give in brief outline some idea of the contents of the book. It was to be called “Over the Plum-Pudding; or, Tales Told Under the Mistletoe, by Sundry Tattlers. Edited by Horace Wilkinson”—in fact, I hold a copyright at this moment upon this alluring title. Furthermore, it was to be unique among modern publications in that, while professing to be a Christmas book, the tales were to be full of Christmas spirit. The idea struck me as a very original one. I had observed that Fourth-of-July issues of periodicals were differentiated from the Christmas numbers only in the superabundance of advertisements in the latter, and it occurred to me that a Christmas publication containing some reference to the Christmas season would strike the public as novel—and, in spite of the unfortunate overturning of my schemes, I still think so. Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes & Speedway thought so, too, and gave me carte blanche to go ahead, stipulating only that I should spare no expense, and that the stories should be paid for on publication. I was also to enlist the services of the best persons in letters only.

Taking this last stipulation as the basis of my editorial operations, it is not a far cry to the conclusion that I sought to get stories from such eminent writers as Mr. Hall Caine, Dr. Doyle, Mr. Kipling, Richard Harding Davis, Andrew Lang, George Meredith, and myself. There were a few others, but these were people whose light shone forth suddenly and brilliantly, and then went out. I shall have no occasion to mention their names. It is enough to call attention to the fact that ultimately they were all I had left.

Mr. Caine’s contribution was a charming little fancy written originally for children, but sent to me because it was the only thing the author happened to have on hand at the moment he received my request. It was called, if I remember rightly, “The Inebriate Santa Claus.” It was full of that spirit of life and gaiety which has been such a marked feature of Mr. Caine’s work in the past, and was written with all of that fine, manly vigor that Mr. Caine puts into his every word. Sunshiny, I should call it, if I were seeking for the one word which summed up the virtues of “The Inebriate Santa Claus.” One glowed as one perused it with the warmth of the whole thing, especially in such passages as this, for instance:

His downward trip through the chimney of Marston Hall gave him confidence in himself. He had observed as he was about to leave the roof of Higginbottom Castle that his footprints in the snow were suggestive of his actual condition, and he wondered if he could possibly get through the evening’s work without catastrophe. But the Marston Hall chimney flue restored his confidence. It was straight, and after his descent the soot, that clung to the inner walls like bad habits to a man, showed none of the vacillating lines which were the essential characteristic of his footprints on the roof. He was sobering up.

I wish I could remember the story as a whole. It would be unjust, however, to the author to try to reproduce it from memory, and I shall not make the effort. It went on to tell, however, how the good old Saint, in his unfortunate condition of inebriacy, overturned the Christmas tree at Marston Hall and set fire to the house, resulting in a slight singeing of his own person and the destruction of the Hall, together with all the inmates, a fact that so distressed the unhappy Santa Claus that at the next nursery he visited he resolved to reform and indulge no more in strong drink, although the nurse, on putting the children to bed, had departed, leaving a bottle of whiskey upon the mantelpiece—this showing Santa Claus’s powers of self-control in the face of temptation.

Altogether, as I have already said, the story was full of import and sunshine, and, as may be seen from my brief and inadequate description, was possibly more fitted for children than for the adult mind.

III

Mr. Meredith’s story came next, and it had all of that charm which goes with the average Meredithian production. To call it dictionaryesque is not too high praise to bestow upon it. What it was about I never really gathered, although I of course read it through several times before accepting it, and perused the proofs carefully some eight or nine times. There were allusions to Santa Claus in it, however, and I therefore let it pass, feeling that to the admirers of the master’s genius its message would ring out clear and crisp like the glad chimes of the Christmas morn; and it was my desire to be the bearer of glad things to all people, whether I was myself in sympathy with their literary tastes or not. I recall one page in the story—the last of all, however, which struck me as a marvel. Fotherington, whom I guessed to be the hero, is standing on top of a shot-tower in London, about to commit suicide by jumping down, when all of a sudden Santa Claus appears beside him and inquires if the tower is a chimney or not. Fotherington gives a “throat-gasping laugh” and invites Santa Claus to join him in the jump and find out for himself. The author writes:

At this, the spirit of the Hourgod, the multitudinous larvae of his emotions, intensified by the nose-whirling impertinence of the other, gazed, eyes tear-surging, towards the reddish northern cheek of the piping East, human in its bulk, the wharf cranes rising superabundant from the umbrageous onflowing of the commerce-ridden stream, piercing the middle distance like a mine-hid vein of purest gold in the mellowing amber of approaching dawn, flying seaward, curdling in its mad pressure ever onward, soon to be lost in the vaguely infinite, beyond which, unconscious of the perils of the inspired homecoming, lies that of which homogeneous man may speculate, but never, by reason of his inflated limitations, approximate without expletion.

“Beg pardon!” said he, with an interrogation in his inflection. “I was not aware of the facts.” Fotherington was silent for a moment, and then, recognizing Santa Claus, a shame-surge encarnadined his cheek, and he answered, strenuously apologetic: “This is the shot-tower. The sight of you restores me to life. I shall not again dwell upon self-destruction. Heaven bless the spirit of the hour.”

He buried his face in the Saint’s pack, and hot tears sprang forth from his vision.

“Beg pardon again,” observed Santa Claus, drawing himself away. “If you must weep, weep on my shoulder, not on my pack. The toys are not painted in fast colors.”

And the two went down together.

IV

The contribution of Mr. Davis was a most excellent sketch of the inimitable Van Bibber, and told how on his way to a dance late one evening during Christmas week he encountered, snuggled in a doorway near the North River, a poor little street gamin nearly frozen to death. Van Bibber saves the child’s life by removing his dress-coat and wrapping it up in it, the result being that he has to lead the cotillion at Mrs. Winchley’s clad in a fur-lined overcoat. It was a tender and touching little literary gem, and was full of the fine sentiment and lofty moralizing for which this author has always been noted. Its humor may well be imagined. The little talk between Van Bibber and Travers in the dressing-room as to Van Bibber’s dilemma when he realized how his impetuosity had led him into giving the boy his coat was a characteristic bit, and ran somewhat like this:

“What the deuce shall I do?” he said, fanning his somewhat flushed face with the silver-backed hand-mirror. “I can’t lead the cotillion in my shirtsleeves.”

“No, you can’t,” assented Travers with a droll smile. “What an ass you were not to give him your fur-lined overcoat instead.”

“It wouldn’t have fitted him,” said Van Bibber, absently. “Poor little devil.”

“There’s only one thing you can do, Van,” said Travers after a moment’s pause. “Either don’t stay, or dance in your overcoat.”

“That’s two things,” retorted Van Bibber. “Of course I’ve got to stay. I told Mrs. Winchley I’d lead her cotillion, and I’ve got to do it. Do you suppose people would say anything if I did appear in my overcoat?”

“Not if they had any manners they wouldn’t,” said Travers. “Of course, it will be observed, but if they know anything about good form they’ll keep quiet about it.”

“Then it’s settled,” Van Bibber said quietly. “I’ll wear the fur overcoat, and to disarm all criticism I’ll simply tell everybody I have a fearful cold and don’t dare take it off. Come on—let’s go down. It’s half past one now, and Mrs. Winchley told me she wanted to begin early, so as to have it over with before breakfast.”

V

It was my pleasure next to have a Sherlock Holmes story from Dr. Doyle, wherein the great detective is once more restored to life, and through an ingenious complication discovers himself. His sudden disappearance, which was never fully explained, did not really result in his death, but in a concussion of the brain in his fall over the precipice which drove all consciousness of his real self from his mind. Found in an unconscious condition by a band of yodelers, he is carried by them into the Tyrolese Alps, where, after a prolonged illness, he regains his health, but all his past life is a blank to him. How he sets about ferreting out the mystery of his identity is the burden of the story, and how he ultimately discovers that he is none other than Sherlock Holmes by finding a diamond brooch in the gizzard of a Christmas turkey at Nice, where he is stopping under the name of Higgins, is vividly set forth:

“And you have never really ascertained, Mr. Higgins, who you are?” asked Lady Blenkinsop, as they sat down at Mrs. Wilbraham’s gorgeous table on Christmas night.

“No, madame,” he replied, sadly, “but I shall ultimately triumph. My taste in cigars is a peculiar one, and no one else that I have ever met can smoke with real enjoyment the kind of a cigar that I like. I am searching, step by step, in every city for a cigar dealer who makes a specialty of that brand who has recently lost a customer. Ultimately I shall find one, and then the chain of evidence will be near to its ultimate link, for it may be that I shall turn out to be that man.”

Thus the story runs on, and the pseudo-Higgins delights his fellow-guests with the brilliance of his conversation. He eats lightly, when suddenly a flash of triumph comes into his deep-set eyes, for on cutting open the turkey gizzard the diamond brooch is disclosed. He seems about to faint, but with a strong effort of the will he regains his strength and arises.

“Mrs. Wilbraham,” he said, quietly and simply—“ladies and gentlemen, I must leave you. I take the 9.10 train for London. May I be excused?”

The eyes of the company opened wide.

“Why—must you really go, Mr Higgins?” Mrs. Wilbraham queried

“It is imperative,” said he. “I am going to have myself identified. The finding of this diamond brooch in a turkey gizzard convinces me that I am Sherlock Holmes. Such a thing could happen to no other, yet I may be mistaken. I shall call at once upon a certain Dr. Watson, of London, a friend of Holmes’s, who will answer the question definitely.”

And with a courteous bow to the company he left the room, his usually pale features aglow with unwonted color.

Of course, the surmise proves to be correct, and the great detective once more rejoins his former companions, restored not only to them, but to himself. It was one of the most keenly interesting studies of detective life that Dr. Doyle or anyone else has ever given us, and my regret that the story is lost to the world amounts almost to a positive grief.

VI

The only other notable efforts in the book were, as I have already indicated, from the pens of Andrew Lang and Rudyard Kipling, and as the preceding stories were characteristic of their authors, so were these equally so. I have not the time to more than suggest their tenor briefly. Mr. Lang’s story was one of his charming made-over fairy tales, and he unfortunately introduced that most fearsome of dragons Fafner into it. He was held, however, in captivity, and had the situation in which Mr. Lang left him been allowed to remain undisturbed, all would have been well, and “Over the Plum-Pudding” would not have met with disaster. Mr. Kipling, however, chose to contribute a Mulvaney story, and herein lay the whole trouble. Mulvaney and his two roistering companions, Ortheris and Learoyd, start in on a Christmas spree, and they do it in their own complete fashion, and Mr. Kipling never in his life drew his characters more vividly and vigorously; but this time he did it too vigorously. The three musketeers of the British army got beyond his control, and it is the fact that when “Over the Plum-Pudding” was ready for presentation to the public they broke loose from the story in which they were supposed to be confined; went rushing and roaring, regardless of the etiquette of the situation, through every other tale in the book, found the bottle of whiskey which the nursemaid in Mr. Caine’s story had left on the mantelpiece, drained it to the dregs, and then, under the mad influence of the alcohol, let Fafner loose.

Their fate may easily be imagined. They were at once destroyed by the angry beast, who, after making a meal upon them, rushed like a steam-engine through the Sherlock Holmes story, swallowing its characters one and all as though they were naught but salted almonds; breathed fire upon Meredith’s shot-tower until it tottered and fell, a smoking ruin; chewed up the frozen little gamin in the Van Bibber sketch; withered Van Bibber and his overcoat and his friends by one snorting blast of steam from his left nostril; and, in fact, to make a long story shorter than it might be, strewed blue ruin from title-page to finis of “Over the Plum-Pudding.” It is the fact that on the morning set for the presentation of the edition to the public, on opening my own copy of the book there was not a character in it left alive; not a house that had not been reduced to charred timbers and ashes; not a scene that was not withered as by the flames of perdition, and where once had been a strong portrayal of a scene of happy social revels, the ballroom of Mrs. Winchley, where Van Bibber was to lead the cotillion, lay Fafner—dead. Kipling’s characters were too much for his digestion.

VII

That is the story of “Over the Plum-Pudding.” That is why it never appeared. That is the explanation of the editor. I admit that in some ways the explanation seems scarcely credible, but it is in every respect truthful, and on my return from Manila I will prove it to all suspicious-minded persons who may choose to doubt it, for I can show them the copyright papers of the book, the advertisement of its approaching publication, my contract with Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes and Speedway, and a few press notices I had myself prepared for its exploitation.

I can also prove that Mr. Kipling draws his characters so vividly and vigorously that they stand out like real people before us, and certainly if they can do that, there is no reason why they should not be able to do all that I have claimed they did do.

Horace Wilkinson.

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Bills, M.D.

A CHRISTMAS GHOST I HAVE MET

It was the usual kind of a Christmas Eve. The snow was falling with its customary noiselessness, and the world was gradually taking on a mantle of white which made it look like a very attractive wedding-cake. It was upon this occasion that Old Bills materialized in my downtown study and got me out of a very unpleasant hole. The year had not been a very profitable one for me. My last book had been a comparative failure, having sold only 118,000 copies in the first six months, so that instead of receiving $60,000 in royalties on the first of November, as I had expected, I had fallen down to something like $47,000. There was a fraction of seven or eight hundred dollars—just what it was I cannot recall. Then my securities had, for one reason or another, failed to yield the customary revenue; some thirty or forty of my houses had not rented; taxes had increased—in short, I found myself at Christmastime, with my wife and eight children expecting to be remembered, with less than $80,000 that I could spare in the bank.

To be sure, we had all agreed that this year we should avoid extravagance, and the little madame had informed me that she would be very unhappy if I expended more than $40,000 upon her present from myself. My daughter, too, like the sweet girl that she is, said, with a considerable degree of firmness, that she would rather have a check for $10,000 than the diamond necklace I had contemplated giving her; and my eldest son had sent word from college, in definite terms, that he didn’t think, in view of the hard times, he would ask for anything more than a new pair of wheelers for his drag, three hunters, a T cart, a silver chafing-dish set, and a Corot for his smoking-room.

This spirit, as I say, permeated the household—even the baby babbled of economy, and thought he could get along with ruby jackstones and a bag of cats’-eyes to play marbles with. But even thus, as the reader can see for himself, $80,000 would not go far, and I was in despair. There is no greater trial in the world than that confronting a generously disposed father who suddenly finds himself at Christmas time without the means to carry out his wishes and to provide his little ones with the gifts which their training has justified them in expecting.

I was seated alone in my office, not having the courage to go home and tell my family of the horrid state of affairs, or, rather, putting off the evil hour, for ultimately the truth would have to be told. It was growing dark. Outside I could hear the joyous hum of the busy streets; the clanging of the crowded cable-cars, going to and fro, bearing their holiday burden of bundle-laden shoppers, seemed to sound musically and to tell of peace and goodwill. Even the cold, godless world of commerce seemed to warm up with the spirit of the hour. I alone was in misery, at a moment when peace and happiness and goodwill were the watchwords of humanity. My distress increased every moment as I conjured up before my mind’s eye the picture of the coming morn, when my children and their mother, in serene confidence that I would do the right thing by them, should find the tree bare of presents, and discover, instead of the usual array of bonds and jewels, and silver services, and horses and carriages, and rich furs, and priceless books (the baby had cut his teeth the year before on the cover of the Grolier edition of Omar Khayyam, which, at a cost of $600, I had given him, bound in ivory and gold, with carbuncles adorning the back and the title set in brilliants)—discover, instead of these, I say, mere commonplace presents possessing no intrinsic worth—why, it was appalling to think of their disappointment! To be sure, I had purchased a suit of Russian sables for madam, and had concealed a certified check for $25,000 in the pocket of the dolman, but what was that in such times, hard as they were!

And you may imagine it was all exquisitely painful to me. Then, on a sudden, I seemed not to be alone. Something appeared to materialize off in the darker corner of the study. At first I thought it was merely the filming over of my eyes with the moisture of an incipient and unshed tear, but I was soon undeceived, for the thing speedily took shape, and a rather unpleasant shape at that, although there was a radiant kindliness in its green eyes.

“Who are you?” I demanded, jumping up and staring intently at the apparition, my hair meanwhile rising slightly.

“I’m Dr. Bills,” was the response, in a deep, malarial voice, as the phantom, for that is all it was, approached me. “I’ve come to help you out of your troubles,” it added, rather genially.

“Ah? Indeed!” said I. “And may I ask how you know I am in trouble?”

“Certainly you may,” said the old fellow. “We ghosts know everything.”

“Then you are a ghost, eh?” I queried, although I knew mighty well at the moment I first saw him that he was nothing more, he was so transparent and misty.

“At your service,” was the reply, as my unexpected visitor handed me a gelatinous-looking card, upon which was engraved the following legend:

U. P. BILLS, M.D.,
“The Spook Philanthropist.”
Troubles Cured While You Wait.

“Ah!” said I, as I read it. “You’ll find me a troublesome patient, I am afraid. Do you know what my trouble is?”

“Certainly I do,” said Bills. “You’re a little short and your wife and children have expectations.”

“Precisely,” said I. “And here is Christmas on top of us and nothing for the tree except a few trifling gems and other things.”

“Well, my dear fellow,” said the kindly visitant, “if you’ll intrust yourself to my care I’ll cure you in a jiffy. There never was a case of immediate woe that I couldn’t cure, but you’ve got to have confidence in me.”

“Sort of faith cure, eh?” I smiled.

“Exactly,” he replied. “If you don’t believe in Old Bills, Old Bills cannot relieve your distress.”

“But what do you propose to do, Doctor?” I asked. “What is your course of treatment?”

“That’s my business,” he retorted. “You don’t ask your family physician to outline his general plan to you when you summon him to treat you for gout, do you?”

“Well, I generally like to know more of him than I know of you,” said I, apologetically, for I had no wish to offend him. “For instance, are you allopath, or a homeopath, or some hitherto untrodden path?”

“Something of a homeopath,” he admitted.

“Then you cure trouble with trouble?” I asked, rather more pertinently, as the event showed, than I imagined.

“I cure trouble with ease,” he replied glibly. “You may accept or reject my services. It’s immaterial to me.”

“I don’t wish to seem ungrateful, Doctor,” said I, seeing that the old spook was growing a trifle irritated. “I certainly most gratefully accept. What do you want me to do?”

“Go home,” he said, laconically.

“But the empty tree?” I demanded.

“Will not be empty tomorrow morning,” said he, and he vanished.

I locked my study door and started to walk home, first stopping at the café downstairs and cashing a check for $60,000. I had confidence in Old Bills, but I thought I would provide against possible failure; and I had an idea that on the way uptown I might perhaps find certain little things to please, if not satisfy, the children, which could be purchased for that sum. My surmise was correct, for, while Old Bills did his work, as will soon be shown, most admirably, I had no difficulty in expending the $60,000 on simple little things really worth having, between Pine Street and Forty-second. For instance, as I passed along Union Square I discovered a superb pair of pearl hatpins which I knew would please my second daughter, Jenny, because they were just suited to the immediate needs of the talking doll she had received from her aunt on her birthday. They were cheap little pins, but as I paid down the $1,800 they cost in crisp hundred dollar bills they looked so stunningly beautiful that I wondered if, after all, they mightn’t prove sufficient for little Jenny’s whole Christmas, if Bills should fail. Then I met poor old Hobson, who has recently met reverses. He had an opera-box for sale for $2,500, and I bought it for Martha, my third daughter, who, though only seven years old, frequently entertains her little school friends with all the manner of a woman of fashion. I felt that the opera-box would please the child, although it was not on the grand tier. I also killed two birds with one stone by taking a mortgage for $10,000 on Hobson’s house, by which I not only relieved poor old Hobson’s immediate necessities, but, by putting the mortgage in my son Jimmy’s stocking, enriched the boy as well. So it went. By the time I reached home the $60,000 was spent, but I felt that, brought up as they had been, the children would accept the simple little things I had brought home to them in the proper spirit. They were, of course, cheap, but my little ones do not look at the material value of their presents. It is the spirit which prompts the gift that appeals to them—Heaven bless ’em! I may add here, too, that my little ones did not even by their manner seem to grudge that portion of the $60,000 spent which their daddy squandered on his immediate impulses, consisting of a nickel extra to a lad who blacked his boots, thirty cents for a cocktail at the club, and a dime to a beggar who insisted on walking up Fifth Avenue with him until he was bought off with the coin mentioned—a species of blackmail which is as intolerable as it is inevitable on all fashionable thoroughfares.

But their delight as well as my own on the following morning, when the doctor’s fine work made itself manifest, was glorious to look upon. I frankly never in my life saw so magnificent a display of gifts, and I have been to a number of recent millionaire weddings, too. To begin with, the most conspicuous thing in the room was the model of a steam yacht which Old Bills had provided as the family gift to myself. It was manifest that the yacht could not be got into the house, so Bills had had the model sent, and with it the information that the yacht itself was ready at Cramp’s yard to go into commission whenever I might wish to have it. It fairly took my breath away. Then for my wife was a rope of pearls as thick as a cable, and long enough to accommodate the entire week’s wash should the laundress venture to borrow it for any such purpose. All the children were fitted out in furs; there were four gold watches for the boys, diamond tiaras and necklaces of pearls and brilliant rings for the girls. My eldest son received not only the horses and carriages and the Corot he wanted, but a superb gold mounted toilet set, and a complete set of golf clubs, the irons being made of solid silver, the shafts of ebony, with a great glittering diamond set in the handle of each, these all in a caddy bag of sealskin, the fur shaved off. There was a charming little naphtha launch and a horseless carriage for Jimmy, and, as for the baby, it was very evident that Old Bills had a peculiarly tender spot in his ghostly makeup for children. I doubt if the finest toy-shops of Paris ever held toys in greater variety or more ingenious in design. There were two armies of soldiers made of aluminum which marched and fought like real little men, a band of music at the head of each that discoursed the most stirring music, cannons that fired real shot—indeed, all the glorious panoply of war was there in miniature, lacking only blood, and I have since discovered that even this was possible, since every one of the little soldiers was so made that his head could be pulled off and his body filled with red ink. Then there was a miniature office building of superb architectural design, with little steam elevators running up and down, and throngs of busy little creatures, manipulated by some ingenious automatic arrangement, rushing hither and thither like mad, one and all seemingly engaged upon some errand of prodigious commercial import. Another delightful gift for the baby was a small opera-house, and a complete troupe of little wax prime donne, and zinc tenors, and brass baritones, with patent removable chests, within which small phonographs worked so that the little things sang like so many music boxes, while in the chairs and boxes and galleries were matinée girls and their escorts and their bonnets and their enthusiastic applause—truly I never dreamed of such magnificent things as Old Bills provided for the occasion. He had indeed got me out of my immediate difficulty, and when I went to bed that night, after the happiest Christmas I had ever known, I called down the richest blessings upon his head; and why, indeed, should I not? We had between $400,000 and $500,000 worth of presents in the house, and they had not cost me a penny, outside of the $60,000 I had spent on the way uptown, and what could be more conducive to one’s happiness than such a Yuletide Klondike as that?

This was many years ago, dear reader, before the extravagant methods of the present day crept into and somewhat poisoned the Christmas spirit, but from that day to this Old Bills has never ceased to haunt me. He has been my constant companion from that glorious morning until today, when I find myself telling you of him, and, save at the beginning of every recurring month, when I am always very busy and somewhat anxious about making ends meet, his society is never irksome. Once you get used to Bills he becomes a passion, and were it not for his singular name I think I should find him a constant source of joy.

It rather dampened my ardor, I must confess, when I found that the initials of the good old doctor, U. P., stood for Un Paid, but if you can escape the chill and irksomeness of that there is no reason why the poorest of us all may not derive much real joy in life from the good things we can get through Bills.

In justice to the readers of this little tale, I should perhaps say, in conclusion, that I read it to my wife before sending it out, and she asserts that it was all a dream, because she says she never received that rope of pearls. To which I retorted that she deserved to, anyhow—but, dream or otherwise, the visitation has truly been with me for many years, and I fear the criticism of my spouse is somewhat prompted by jealousy, for she has stated in plain terms that she would rather go without Christmas than see me constantly haunted by Bills: but, after all, it is a common condition, and it does help one at Christmas time in an era when the simple observance of the season, so characteristic of the olden time, has been superceded by a lavish expenditure which would bring ruin to the richest of us were it not for the benign influence of Bills, M.D.

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The Flunking
of Watkins’s Ghost

Parley was a Freshman at Blue Haven University, and, like many other Freshmen, had a wholesome fear of examinations. In the football field he was courageous to the verge of foolhardiness, but when he sat in his chair in the examination-room, with a paper covered with questions before him, he was as timid as a fawn. There was no patent flying or revolving wedge method of getting him through the rush-line of Greek, nor by any known tackle could he down the halfbacks of mathematics and kick the ball of his intellect through the goalposts, on the other side of which lay the coveted land of Sophomoredom. Hence Parley, who had spent most of his time practicing for his class eleven, found himself at the end of his first term in a state of worry like unto nothing he had ever known before.

“It would be tough to fail at this stage of the game,” he thought, as he reflected upon what his father would say in the event of his failure. “It wouldn’t be so bad to flunk later on, but for a chap to fall down at the very beginning of his race wouldn’t reflect much credit on his trainer, and I think it very likely the governor would be mad about it.”

“Of course he would!” said a voice at his side. “Who wouldn’t?”

Parley jumped, he was so startled. Nor was it surprising that even so cool and physically strong a person as he should for an instant know the sensation of fear. If you or I should happen to be lying off in our room before a flickering log-fire, which furnished the only illumination, smoking a pipe, reflecting, and all alone, I think we would ourselves, superior beings as we are, be startled to hear a strange voice beside us answering our unspoken thoughts. This was exactly what had happened in Parley’s case. Now that the football season was over, he realized that too much time had been spent on that and too little upon his studies, and conditions were all he could see in the future. This naturally made Parley very unhappy, and upon this particular night he had retired to his room to be alone until his blue spell should wear off. Several of his classmates had knocked at his door, but he had made no response, and in order further to give the impression that he was not within he had turned out his gas and table lamp, and sat pulling viciously away at his pipe, watching the flames on the hearth as they danced to and fro upon the logs, which last hissed and spluttered away as if they approved neither of the dancing flames nor of Parley himself.

Straining his eyes in the direction whence the voice had seemed to come, Parley endeavored to ascertain who had spoken, but all was as it had been before. There was no one in sight, and the freshman settled back again in his chair.

“Humph!” he ejaculated. “Guess I must have fallen asleep and dreamed it.”

“Not a bit of it,” interposed the voice again. “I’m over here in the armchair.”

Parley sprang to his feet and grabbed up his “banger,” as the big cane he had managed to hold to the bitter end in the rush of cherished memory was called.

“Oh, you are, are you?” he cried, controlling his fear with great difficulty; and his voice would hardly come, his throat and lips had become so dry from nervousness. “And, pray, how the deuce did you get in?” he demanded, peering over into the armchair’s capacious depths—still seeing nothing, however.

“Oh, the usual way,” replied the voice—“through the door.”

“That’s not so,” retorted Parley. “Both doors are locked, so you couldn’t. Why don’t you come out like a man where I can see you, and tell the truth, if you know how?”

“Can’t,” said the other—“that is, I can’t come out like a man.”

“Ah!” sneered Parley. “What are you then—a purple cow?”

“I don’t know what a purple cow is,” replied the voice, in sepulchral tones. “I never saw one. They didn’t have ’em in my day, only plain brown ones—cows of the primary colors.”

“Ah?” said Parley, smartly. The invisible thing was speaking so meekly that his momentary terror was passing away. “You had blue cows in your day, eh?”

“Oh, my, yes!” replied the strange visitor; “lots of ’em. Take any old cow and deprive her of her calf, and she becomes as blue as indigo.”

Here the voice laughed, and Parley joined.

“You’re a clever—ah—what?—A clever It,” he said.

“You might call me an It if you wanted to,” said the stranger. “Possibly that’s my general classification. To be more specific, however, I’m a ghost.”

“Ho! Nonsense’” retorted Parley. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“That may be,” said the other, calmly. “I didn’t when I was here, a living human being with two legs and a taste for smoke, like you. But I found out afterwards that I was all wrong. When you get to be a ghost, if you have any self-respect you’ll believe in ’em. Furthermore, if I wasn’t a ghost I couldn’t have got in here through two closed doors to speak to you.”

“That’s so,” replied Parley. “I didn’t think of that. Still, you can’t expect me to believe you without some proof. Suppose you let me whack you over the head with this stick? If it goes through you without hurting you, all well and good. If it doesn’t, and knocks you out, I shan’t be any the worse off. What do you say?”

“I’m perfectly willing,” said the voice; “only look out for your chair. You might spoil it.”

“Afraid, eh?” said Parley.

“For the chair, yes,” replied the spirit. “Still it isn’t my chair, and if you want to take the risk, I’m willing. You can kick a football through my ribs if you wish. It’s all the same to me.”

“I’ll try the banger,” said Parley, dryly. “Then if you are a sneak-thief, as I half suspect, you’ll get what you deserve. If you’re what you claim to be, all’s well for both of us. Shall I?”

“Go ahead,” replied the ghost, nonchalantly.

Parley was more surprised than ever, and was beginning to believe that It was a ghost, after all. No sneak-thief would willingly permit himself to be whacked on the head with any such adamantine weapon as that which Parley held in his hand.

“Never mind,” said he, relenting. “I won’t.”

“Yon must, now,” said the other. “If you don’t, I can’t help you at all. I can’t be of service to a person who either can’t or won’t believe in me. If you want to pass your examinations, whack.”

“Bah! What idiocy!” cried Parley. “I—”

“Go ahead and whack,” persisted the voice. “As hard as you know how, too, if you want to. Pretend you are cornered by a wild beast, and have only one chance to escape, and whack for dear life. I’m ready. My arms are folded, and I’m sitting right here over the embroidered cushion that serves as the seat of your chair.”

“I’ve caught you, there,” said Parley. “You aren’t sitting there at all. I can see the embroidered cushion.”

“Which simply proves what I say,” retorted the ghost. “If I were not a ghost, but a material thing like a sneak-thief, you couldn’t see through me. Whack away.”

And Parley did so. He raised the banger aloft, and brought it down on the spot where the invisible creature was sitting with all the force at his command.

“There,” said the ghost, calmly, from the chair. “Are you satisfied? It didn’t do me any damage; though I must say you’ve knocked the embroidery into smithereens.”

It was even as he said. The force with which Parley had brought the heavy stick down had made a great rent in the soft cushion, and he had had his trouble for his pains.

“Well, do you believe in me now?” the ghost demanded, Parley, in his surprise and wrath, having found no words suited to the occasion.

“I suppose I’ve got to,” he replied, ruefully gazing upon the ruined cushion. “That’s what I get for being an idiot. I don’t know—”

“It’s what you get for pretending that you can’t believe all that you can’t see,” put in the ghost, “which is a very grave error for a young man—or an old one, either, for that matter—to make.”

Parley sat down, and was silent for a moment.

“Well,” he said at length, “granting that there are such things as ghosts, and that you are one, what the deuce do you come bothering me for? Just wanted to plague me, I suppose, and get me to smash my furniture.”

“Not at all,” retorted the ghost. “I didn’t ask you to smash your furniture. On the contrary, I warned you that that was what you were going to do. You suggested smashing me, and I told you to go ahead.”

Parley couldn’t deny it, but he could not quite conceal his resentment.

“Don’t you think I’m bothered enough by the prospect of a beautiful flunk at my exams, without your trickling in through the doorway to exasperate me?” he demanded.

“Who has come to exasperate you, Parley?” said the ghost, a trifle irritably. “I haven’t. I came to help you, but, by Jingo! I’ve half a mind to leave you to get out of your troubles the best way you can. Do you know what’s the matter with you? You are too impetuous. You are the kind of chap who strikes first and thinks afterwards. So far your experiments on me have kept me from telling you who I am and what I’ve come for. If you don’t want help, say so. There are others who do, and I’ll be jiggered if I wouldn’t rather help them than you, now that I know what a flyaway Jack you are.”

The spirit with which the visitor uttered these words made Parley somewhat ashamed of his behavior, and yet no one could really blame him, under the circumstances, for doing what he did.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in a moment, “but you must remember, sir, that at Blue Haven there is no chair in manners, and the etiquette of a meeting of this sort is a closed book to me.”

“That’s all right,” returned the ghost, kindly. “I don’t blame you, on the whole. The trouble lies just where you say. In college people study geology and physiology and all the other ’ologies, save spectrology. Most college trustees disbelieve in ghosts, just as you do, and the consequence is you only touch upon the relations of man with the spirit world in your studies of psychology, and then only in a very incomplete fashion. Any gentleman knows how to behave to another gentleman, but when he comes into contact with a spook he’s all at sea. If somebody would only write a ghost-etiquette book, or a ‘Spectral Don’t,’ people who suffer from what you are pleased to call hallucinations would have an easier time of it. If I had been a book-agent, or a sneak-thief, or a lady selling patent eggbeaters which no home should be without, you would have received me with greater courtesy than you did.”

“Still,” said Parley, anxious to make out a good case for himself, “most of ’em wouldn’t walk right into a fellow’s room and scare him to death, you know.”

“Nor would I,” said the ghost. “You are still living, Parley, as you wouldn’t have been if I’d scared you to death.”

“Specious, but granted,” returned Parley. “And now, Mr. Spook, let’s exchange cards.”

“I left my card-case at home,” laughed the spirit. “But I’ll tell you who I am and it will suffice. I’m old Billie Watkins, of the class of ninety-nine.”

“There is no Watkins in ninety-nine,” said Parley, suspiciously.

“Well, there was,” retorted the spirit. “I ought to know, because I was old Billie myself. Valedictorian, too.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Parley. “Ninety-nine hasn’t graduated yet!”

“Yes, it has,” returned the ghost. “Seventeen ninety-nine, I mean.”

Parley whistled. “Oh, I see! You’re a relic of the last century!”

“That’s it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it,” said Billie. “We didn’t mind being young, you know. When we had an eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars. And there wasn’t any fighting over strokes, either; and we’d row anybody that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the only thing we thought about was getting in first.”

“In any old way, I suppose?” sneered Parley.

“You bet!” cried the spirit, with enthusiasm. “We’d have put our eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they’d asked us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those days. A fellow didn’t have to make a science out of his fun when I was at Blue Haven.”

“And what good did it do you?” cried Parley.

“We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen States, that’s what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat ’em at marbles on their own campus,” returned the ghost.

Parley was beginning to be interested.

“I’d like to see the records of those times,” he said.

“Records? Bosh!” said old Billie Watkins. “You don’t for a moment believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those days!” the ghost added, with a sigh. “College wasn’t filled with politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then.”

“Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers,” suggested Parley.

“We’ve become both since,” said Watkins. “But we were boys then, and glad of it.”

“Aren’t we boys now?” queried Parley.

“Yes, you are,” replied the ghost. “But you seem to be doing your best to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks like a grave man. Why, I don’t believe you ever robbed the president’s hen-coop in your life!”

“No,” laughed Parley, “never. For two reasons: it’s easier to get our chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn’t got a hen-coop.”

“Exactly. Even our college presidents aren’t what they were. Never hooked a ham out of his smokehouse, either, I’ll wager, and for the same reason—Prex hasn’t a smokehouse. All the smoking he does is in the line of cigars. But all this hasn’t got anything to do with what I came here for. I came to help you, and I’ve seen enough of the way things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren’t you?”

“Well, rather,” said Parley. “You see, I’ve been playing football.”

“Precisely,” said Watkins. “And you’ve put so much time into learning to do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you’ve let everything else go.”

“I suppose so,” said Parley, sullenly.

“That’s it,” said old Billie Watkins. “Now that everything’s science, there isn’t time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he’s got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as an athlete. Well, it’s not your fault, maybe. It’s the times, and I’m going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It’s my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I’ve decided to help you out of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get Blue Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was so cocksure of winning it didn’t seem to be necessary. I’m sorry now I didn’t know it was all men’s bluff and not boys’ confidence. I might have helped the little men out. Still, that’s over, and you are to be the gainer. I’ll pass your examinations for you.”

“What?” cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears.

“I’ll pass your examinations for you,” repeated the ghost. “It won’t be hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class.”

“But how?” asked Parley. “You couldn’t pass yourself off for me, you know.”

“Never said I could,” returned Billie Watkins. “Never wanted to. I’d rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your questions.”

“But what will the professors say?” demanded Parley.

“How will they know? They won’t be able to see me any more than you can,” said the ghost. “It’s easy as shooting.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s square,” said Parley. “In fact, I do know that it isn’t; but if I get through this time I won’t get into the same fix again.”

“That’s just the point,” returned the ghost. “You’re young, in spite of your trying not to be, and you’ve got into trouble. I’ll help you out once, but after that you’ll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I suppose you scientific watermen wouldn’t demean yourselves by paddling a canoe, the way we used to.”

“I’m sure I’m very much obliged, Mr. Watkins,” said Parley.

“Oh, botheration!” cried the ghost. “Mister Watkins! Look here, Parley, we’re both Blue Haven boys—somewhat far apart in time, it’s true, but nonetheless Blue-Havenites. Don’t ‘mister’ me. Call me Billie.”

“All right, Billie,” said Parley. “I’ll go you, and after it’s all over I’ll be as much of a boy as I can.”

“That’s right,” said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again.

•    •    •

What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of Watkins’s ghost had proved a mistake—as, in fact, it was, although poor old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never volunteered his services.

Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings.

“That’s what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might have known it was all a dream,” he groaned.

“It wasn’t,” said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair, which had been repaired.

Parley jumped as if stung.

“You’re a gay old valedictorian, you are!” he cried, glowering at the chair. “Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and burn it, will you? A pretty fix you’ve got me into.”

“I’m sorry, Parley,” began the ghost. “I—”

“Sorry be hanged!” cried Parley. “If you hadn’t made me believe in you, I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it’s a Waterloo all around.”

“If you won’t listen—” the ghost began again.

“I’ve listened enough!” roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. “And if there was any way in which I could get at you, I’d make you smart for your lowdown trick!”

“To think,” moaned the ghost, “that I should see the day when old Billie Watkins was accused of a lowdown trick—and I tried to help him, too.”

“Tried to help me?” sneered Parley. “How the deuce do you make that out? You didn’t come within a mile of me, and I’ve not only flunked, but I’ve lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in you.”

“I was within a mile of you,” retorted the ghost, indignantly. “I was right square in front of you.”

“Then why the dickens didn’t you answer the questions? I read ’em out so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it.”

“I know you did, Parley,” said the ghost, meekly. “And I’d have answered ’em if I could. But I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t?” cried Parley.

“Regularly just couldn’t,” said the ghost.

“A valedictorian couldn’t answer a question on a Freshman’s paper?” cried Parley, scornfully.

“No,” said the ghost.

“Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?” sneered Parley.

“I do, of course,” retorted the ghost, angrily. “A-b, ab, spells nothing. But that doesn’t prove anything. I remember all I ever learned at Blue Haven, but I’ve made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just about where it used to leave off.”

“What?” queried Parley, doubtfully. “What do you mean?”

“Why, it’s plain enough, Jack! Can’t you see?” said Watkins. “What would make a valedictorian in my day won’t help a Freshman through his first year now. Times have changed.”

“Oh, that’s it—eh?” said Parley, somewhat mollified. “It isn’t only the fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum—eh? That it?”

“Precisely,” rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley should understand him. “I’m beginning to understand, my boy, why you fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you are.”

“Thanks,” said Parley, with a short laugh. “I think you ought to have found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, though.”

“It was you who should have found out and told me,” retorted the ghost. “All I can say is that in my day I’d have got you through with flying colors.”

“Well, I’m much obliged,” said Parley. “I’ll get out of it somehow, but it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don’t be so free with your Christmas gifts another time.”

“I won’t, Jack,” said the spirit—“that is, I won’t if you’ll forgive me and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you’ve forgiven me.”

“All right, Billie, my boy,” said Parley. “We’ll call it square.”

And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley’s ways ever since, I think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie Watkins’s ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can only get together and appreciate one another’s good points, and how each has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing customs, ’way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere.

So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie Watkins’s ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, and leave them both with my blessing.

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An Unmailed Letter

BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE
OF SOME SIGNIFICANCE

I called the other night at the home of my friend Jack Chetwood, and found him, as usual, engaged in writing. Chetwood’s name is sufficiently well known to all who read books and periodicals these days to spare me the necessity of adverting to his work, or of attempting to describe his personality. It is said that Chetwood writes too much. Indeed, I am one of those who have said so, and I have told him so. His response has always been that I—and others who have ventured to remonstrate—did not understand. He had to keep at it, he said. Couldn’t help himself. Didn’t write for fun, but because he had to. Always did his best, anyhow, and what more can be asked of any man? Surely a defense of this nature takes the wind out of a critic’s sails.

“Busy, Jack?” said I, as I entered his sanctum.

“Yes,” said he. “Very.”

“Very well,” said I. “Don’t let me disturb you. I only happened in, anyhow. Nothing in particular to say; but, Jacky, why don’t you quit for a little? You’re worn and pale and thin. What’s the use of breaking down? Don’t pose with me. You don’t have to write all the time.”

He smiled wanly at me.

“I—I’m only writing a letter this time,” he said.

“Oh, in that case—” I began.

“You can’t guess whom to?” he interrupted.

“Me,” said I.

“No,” he retorted. “Me.”

“I don’t understand,” said I, somewhat perplexed.

“Myself,” laughed Chetwood.

“You are writing a letter to—to—”

“Myself,” said he. “Truly so. Odd, isn’t it? Wait a few minutes, old man, and I’ll read it to you. Light a cigar and sit down just a minute and I’ll be through.”

I lit one of Chetwood’s cigars. They are excellent. I have heard one expert pronounce them “bully.” They are, and of course while I smoked I was happy.

At the end of a half-hour’s waiting, the silence broken only by the scratching of Chetwood’s pen and by my own puffings upon the weed, he wheeled about in his chair.

“Well, that’s finished,” he said, and he glanced affectionately and, I thought, wistfully about his charming workshop.

“Good,” said I. “You promised to read it to me.”

“All right,” said he. “Here goes.”

And he kept his word. I reproduce the letter from memory. Like all copy-mongers, he began it with a title double underscored, and I reproduce it as I heard it:

LETTER TO MYSELF

On Christmas Giving: A Hint

My dear John,—As the Christmas holidays approach it has seemed to me to be somewhat in the line of my duty to write to you not only to wish you all the good things of the season, but to give you a little fatherly advice which may stand you in good stead when the first of January comes about. I have observed you and your ways with some particularity for some time; in fact, since that very happy day, nearly twenty years ago, when you entered upon the duties of citizenship, with twenty-one years and a birthday gift of $500 from your father to your credit. The twenty-one years had come easily and had gone easily. All you had had to do to acquire and to retain them was to breathe and to keep your feet dry. The $500, which represented so much toil on your father’s part, came to you quite as easily. You saw the check, and you realized the possibilities of the sum for which it called, but I do not think you ever realized the effort that produced that $500. I judge from the way you let it filter through your fingers that you thought your generous father picked the money up from a pile of gold lying somewhere in the back yard of his home. I do not know if you recall what it went for, but I do. Some of it went for a half-dozen sporting pictures of some rarity that you had long wished to hang on the walls of your den. More of it went for rare first editions of books whose possession you had envied others for no little time. A portion of it was spent on sundry trinkets which should adorn your person, such as studs, scarf-pins, a snake ring, with ruby eyes—a disgusting-looking thing, by the way—to encircle your little finger. There were also certain small things in the line of bronzes, silver writing implements, a jug or two of some value that you had cast your eyes upon, and which you were quick to acquire. Do you remember, my dear Jack, how delighted you were with all that you were able to buy with that $500, until the bills came in and you found that the consciousness of a $500 backing had led you into an expenditure of a trifle over $900? You were painfully surprised that day, Jacky, my boy, but, as I have watched you since you let it go at that, you never learned anything from those bills. Indeed, what you call your cheerful philosophy, which led you to console yourself then with the thought that the stuff you had bought on credit if sold at auction would bring in enough to pay the deficit, has clung to you ever since, and has served you ill—very ill—unless I am wholly mistaken. You would strike any other man than myself were he to venture to call you a second Mr. Micawber, but Johnnie, dear, that is what you are—and you are even worse than that, John. Let me assure you of the fact. You are something worse. You are a modern Dick Turpin! Don’t be angry at my saying so. Merely understand that I am telling you the truth, and for your own good, and I’ll explain the analogy. I cannot call a man a modern Dick Turpin without explaining why I do so.

Turpin was a highwayman, as you know. He mounted his horse and went out upon the highway, and whatever he wanted he took. He had no greater powers of resistance in the face of temptation than others had in the face of him. You, John, are much the same, even if you do not realize the fact. You mount the steed called Credit, and you go out upon the highways, and whatever you see that you happen to want, you take—don’t you, Jack? It is true that, sooner or later, you pay, but so did Turpin. Turpin paid with his life. You will pay with yours, and that is why I write you, for the constant anxiety to meet the obligations of your thefts—for that is what they are, John; we cannot blink the fact—this constant anxiety, I say, is sapping your strength, undermining your constitution, destroying slowly but surely your nerves, and sooner or later you will succumb to the strain. Is it worth the price, my boy?

I can imagine you asking what all this has to do with Christmas and the season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to Man. You think I am merely caviling, but I am not. It has this to do with it: It involves my Christmas present to you, which is important to me and I trust will be so to you. I am not going to give you a gold watch, or a complete edition of Thackeray, or a set of golf clubs this year, and, being a man, I cannot knit you a worsted vest as your sister might—or as some other fellow’s sister might. All I can afford to give you this year is a hint, and I shall not wait until Christmas morn to hand it over to you, because it would then lack value. I send it to you now, when you need it most, and, if you accept it, when the Christmas chimes begin to sound their music on the frosty air you will thank me for it perhaps more than you do now.

Don’t be a highwayman this year, John. Never mind what Solomon said; think of what I say. Solomon was a wise man, but he lived in a bygone age. Take thought of the morrow, my boy. Don’t consider the lilies of the field, but come down to real business. Don’t mount your prancing horse Credit and hold up some poor jeweler for a silver water-pitcher for your brother George when you know that on January 1st the jeweler will probably ask you for a quid pro quo, and for which quid you will be compelled to compel him to wait until April or May. And remember that, if your dear wife could have her choice, she would infinitely prefer your peace of mind to the sables which you propose to give her at Christmas, bought on a credit which, however pleasing today, is sure to become a very pressing annoyance tomorrow.

Then, my dear man, there are your children. What a joy they are! What a source of affectionate pride; what a source of satisfaction, and how they trust you, Jack. You remember the trust you placed in your father. You have never slept since you had to do for yourself as you slept when he did for you. You didn’t know a care then; you had no worries in those old days; you knew your home was yours and that every reasonable thing you could wish for he would give you to the full extent of his means. That confidence was not misplaced, and all that you have today you’d willingly give up for that sweet peace of mind that was yours while he was with you. God bless him and his memory. Do you realize, Jack, that you occupy that same relation to your children? They believe in you as you believed in him. And are you meeting your responsibilities as he met his? Think it over. Of course, for instance, Tommie wants a complete railway system, with tracks and signals and switches and nickel-plated rolling stock, and all that—but can you afford to give it to him? And Pollie—dear little Pollie—what right-minded little Pollie does not want a doll; a great yellow-haired, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked doll, with automatic insides and an expensive trousseau? But can you really afford to give it to her? Do you remember when you were a baby how you wanted the moon, and yelled for it lustily? And do you remember how you didn’t get it, and how you sobbed yourself to sleep, and how, in spite of it all, you waked up the next morning all smiles and sunshine, with no recollection of ever having wanted the moon? And do you realize that if your daddy could have given it to you he would have done so? Do you recollect how, ever since that happy time, you have wanted the earth, and how you haven’t got it, and how fortunate you are, and how happy you are without it? So it is, and so it will be with your children. These things do not change. My beloved boy, a serene, unworried father, next to a serene and happy mother, is God’s most gracious gift to childhood, at Christmas or at any other time. If January finds you petulant and nervous over a bill you cannot pay for Tommie’s Christmas railway and for Pollie’s Yuletide doll, then has the 25th of December brought woe instead of joy into your home; strife instead of peace, and good will to man is not to be found there. In January the pure, sweet, simple little minds will wonder at you, Jack. The little hearts will love you just the same, but the little minds will wonder at your irritability, and they will still hold to that beautiful trust. And you? Well, you’ll toss about at night, sleepless and worried, and if you are of the right sort, as I hope and believe you are, you will ask yourself if you are worthy of the confidence the little ones place in you. Your mistaken notions of generosity may have imperilled your household. Given health and strength and ideas, you may be able to keep on and make all right, but who knows at what moment you will have to give up the fight? Why should you invite care and worry? Why not come down to the serious facts and insure the happiness of all who depend upon you by following out a sane and sensible plan of living and of giving? My dear boy, don’t you know you are doing wrong in being unjustifiably ostentatious in your giving? I have likened you to Turpin. You will laugh this off. You aren’t a thief—at least you cannot believe that you are one; but there is something worse even than being a thief, and I fear you are verging upon it.

Frankly, Jack, I am afraid you are a snob. Yes, sir, a plain snob; and if snobbery is not worse than thievery, I know nothing of life. I’d rather be a straight-out, sincere, honest, unpretending thief than a snob, my dear boy. Wouldn’t you? Let us look into this. The thief is the creature of circumstances. He is what he is because his environment and his moral sense, plus his necessities, require that he shall do what he does. But the snob—what compelling circumstances make a snob of a man? Why should he make a pretense of being what he is not? Why should he give things he cannot afford to give unless it be that he desires to make an impression that he has no right to? The thief banks on nothing. The snob takes advantage of his supposed respectability. Bless us, Jacky, aren’t we worse than they are?

Read your Thackeray, old chap. See what he said about snobs. He never inveighed against the submerged soul that never had a chance. He never, with all his imputed cynicism, made a slimy thing of those who fell, as Dickens did. He struck high. He exploited the vices of those who might do him real harm. He took the high man, not the low man, for his target, and he struck home when he struck at snobbery. And he struck a blow for purer, sweeter living, and men may call him cynic for all time, but I shall never cease to call him brave and true for what he did for you and for me, as well as for all other men.

Put yourself in the crucible, Jack. Find out what you are and what you may be, and don’t try to make yourself appear to be generous when you are simply financially reckless. Don’t rob your creditors in the vain hope that you are living up to the spirit of the hour, and don’t rob yourself. You are not living up to that spirit. You are degrading it. God knows I love you more than I love any living thing except my wife and children, but let me tell you this: the man who gives more than he has a right to give is a thief in the eyes of conscience, and, worse than that, he is a snob, and a mean one at that. Adapt your giving to your circumstances. Do what you can to make others happy, but at this season do not, I beg of you, try to do what you can’t in an effort to appear for what you are not.

The happiness of your children, of your wife, of yourself, is involved, and when that happiness is attacked or weakened, then is the whole spirit of Christmas season set aside, and the selfishness of the posing impostor put in its place. Always your affectionate self,

John Henry Chetwood

When Chetwood had finished I puffed away fiercely upon my cigar.

“Good letter, Jack,” said I.

“Yes,” said he, tearing it up.

“Don’t do that,” I cried, trying to restrain him.

He smiled again and sighed. “It’s—gone,” said he. “Gone. Forever. I shall never write it again.”

“You should have sent it to—to yourself,” said I. “I have thought sometimes that such a letter should be written to you.”

“Possibly,” said he. “But—it’s gone.” And he tossed it into the wastebasket.

“It’s a pity,” said I. “You—you might have sold that.”

“I know I might,” said he. “But if it had ever appeared in print I should have been immortally mad. It’s a libel on myself. Truth—is libelous, you know.”

“It might have been rejected,” I said, sarcastically.

“That would have made me madder yet,” said Chetwood.

“Still—you realize the—ah—situation, Jack,” I put in.

“Well,” said he, with a laugh, “Christmas is coming, and when the fever is on—I—well, I catch it. I want to give, give, give, and give I shall.”

“But you are imperiling—” I cried.

“I know, I know,” he interrupted, gently. “God knows I know, but it is the fever of the hour. You can’t stave off an epidemic. It’s not my fault; it’s the fault of the times.”

“Nonsense,” I retorted. “Can’t you stand up against the times?”

“I can,” said he, complacently lighting a cigar. “But I shan’t. We’ll all go to ruin together. The man who tries to stand up against the spirit of the times is an ass. I lack the requisite number of legs for that.”

“Well,” I put in, “I wish you a merry Christmas—”

“I shall have it,” said he, cheerily. “The children—”

“And the New Year?” I interrupted.

“It isn’t here yet,” said Chetwood. “And I never cross a bridge until I come to it. Take another cigar.”

Nevertheless, I went from Chetwood that night rather happier than I ought to have been, perhaps. His letter, even though he did not choose to mail it to himself, showed that he was thinking—thinking about it; and I was glad.

What if all men were to consider the questions that Chetwood raised?

Might not the meaning of Christmas, with all its joy and all its beauty, and all its inspiration-giving qualities, once more be made clear to man? I for one believe it would, and I venture to hope that the old-time simplicity of the observance of the day may again be restored unto us.

“God bless us all!” said Tiny Tim.

When the simpler, happier Christmas time, which is a joy, and not a burden, comes back to us, then will Tiny Tim’s prayer have been answered.

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The Amalgamated
Brotherhood of Spooks

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

It is with very deep regret that I find myself unable to keep the promise made to you last spring to provide you with a suitable ghost story for your Christmas number. I have made several efforts to prepare such a tale as it seemed to me you would require, but, one and all, these have proved unavailing. By a singular and annoying combination of circumstances in which only my unfortunate habit of meeting trouble in a spirit of badinage has involved me, I cannot secure the models which I invariably need for the realistic presentation of my stories, and I decline at this present, as I have hitherto consistently declined, to draw upon my imagination for the ingredients necessary, even though tempted by the exigencies of a contract sealed, signed, and delivered. It is far from my wish to be known to you as one who makes promises only to break them, but there are times in a man’s life when he must consider seriously which is the lesser evil, to deceive the individual or to deceive the world, the latter being a mass of individuals, and, consequently, as much more worthy of respect as the whole is greater than a part. Could I bring myself to be false to my principles as a scribe, and draw upon my fancy for my facts, and, through a prostitution of my art, so sickly o’er my plot with the pale cast of realism as to hoodwink my readers into believing what I know to be false, the task were easy. Given a more or less active and unrestrained imagination, pen, ink, paper, and the will to do so, to construct out of these a ghost story which might have been, but as a matter of fact was not, presents no difficulties whatsoever; but I unfortunately have a conscience which, awkward as it is to me at times, I intend to keep clear and unspotted. The consciousness of having lied would forever rest as a blot upon my escutcheon. I cannot manufacture out of whole cloth a narrative such as you desire and be true to myself, and this I intend to be, even if by so doing I must seem false to you. I think, however, that, as one of my friends and most important consumer, you are entitled to a complete explanation of my failure to do as I have told you I would. To most others I should send merely a curt note evidencing, not pleading, a pressure of other work as the cause of my not coming to time. To you it is owed that I should enter somewhat into the details of the unfortunate business.

You doubtless remember that last summer, with our mutual friend Peters, I traveled abroad seeking health and, incidentally, ideas. I had discovered that imported ideas were on the whole rather more popular in America than those which might be said to be indigenous to the soil. The reading public had, for the time being at least, given itself over to moats and châteaux and bloodshed and the curious dialects of the lower orders of British society. Sherlock Holmes had superseded Old Sleuth in the affections of my countrymen who read books. Even those honest little critics the boys and girls were finding more to delight them in the doings of Richard Coeur de Lion and Alice in Wonderland than in the more remarkable and intensely American adventures of Ragged Dick or Mickie the Motorboy. John Storm was at that moment hanging over the world like the sword of Damocles, and Rudolf Rassendyll had completely overshadowed such essentially American heroes as Uncle Tom and Rollo. I found, to my chagrin, that the poetry of Tennyson was more widely read even than my own, even though Tennyson was dead and I was not. And in the universities whole terms were devoted to the compulsory study of dramatists like Shakespeare and Molière, while home talent, as represented by Mr. Hoyt or the facile productions of Messrs. Weber & Fields, was relegated to the limbo of electives which the students might take up or not, as they chose, and then only in the hours which they were expected to devote to recreation. All of which seemed to indicate that while there was of course no royal road to literary fame, there was with equal certainty no republican path thereto, and that real inspiration was to be derived rather under the effete monarchies of Europe than at home. To Peters the same idea had occurred, but in his case in relation to art rather than to literature. The patrons of art in America had a marked preference for the works of Meissonier, Corot, Gérôme, Millet—anybody, so long as he was a foreigner, Peters said. The wealthy would pay ten, twenty, a hundred thousand dollars for a Rousseau or a Rosa Bonheur rather than exchange a paltry one hundred dollars for a canvas by Peters, though, as far as Peters was concerned, his canvas was just as well woven, his pigments as carefully mixed, and his application of the one to the other as technically correct as was anything from the foreign brushes.

“You can’t take in the full import of a Turner unless you stand a way away from it,” said he, “and if you’ll only stand far enough away from mine you couldn’t tell it from a Meissonier.”

And when I jocularly responded to this that I thought a mile was the proper distance, he was offended. We quarreled, but made up after a while, and in the making up decided upon a little venture into foreign fields together, not only to recuperate, but to see if so be we could discover just where the workers on the other side got that quality which placed them in popular esteem so far ahead of ourselves.

What we discovered along this especial line must form the burden of another story. The main cause of our foreign trip, these discoveries, are but incidental to the theme I have in hand. Our conclusions were important, but they have no place here, and what they were you will have to wait until my work on Abroad versus Home is completed to learn. But what is important to this explanation is the fact that while going through the long passage leading from the Pitti Palace to the Uffizi Gallery at Florence we—or rather I—encountered one of those phantoms which have been among the chief joys and troubles of my life. Peters was too much taken up with his Baedeker to see either ghosts or pictures. Indeed, it used to irritate me that Peters saw so little, but he would do as most American tourists do, and spend all of his time looking for some especial thing he thought he ought to see, and generally missing not only it, but thousands of minor things quite as well worthy of his attention. I don’t believe he would have seen the ghost, however, under any circumstances. It requires a specially cultivated eye or digestion, one or the other, to enable one to see ghosts, and Peters’s eye is blind to the invisible and his digestion is good.

Why, under the canopy, the vulgar little specter was haunting a picture-gallery I never knew, unless it was to embarrass the Americans who passed to and fro, for he claimed to be an American spook. I knew he was not a living thing the minute I laid eyes through him. He loomed up before me while I was engaged in chuckling over a particularly bad canvas by somebody whose name I have forgotten, but which was something like Beppo di Contarini. It represented the scene of a grand fête at Venice back in the fifteenth century, and while preserved by the art-lovers of Florence as something worthy, would, I firmly believe, have failed of acceptance even by the catholic taste of the editor of an American Sunday newspaper comic supplement. The thing was crude in its drawing, impossible in its coloring, and absolutely devoid of action. Every gondola on the canal looked as if it were stuck in the mud, and as for the water of the Grand Canal itself, it had all the liquid glory under this artist’s touch of calf’s-foot jelly, and it amused me intensely to think that these patrons of art, in the most artistic city in the world, should have deemed it worth keeping. However, whatever the merit of the painting, I was annoyed in the midst of my contemplation of it to have thrust into the line of vision a shape—I cannot call it a body because there was no body to it. There were the lineaments of a living person, and a very vulgar living person at that, but the thing was translucent, and as it stepped in between me and the wonderful specimen of Beppo di Somethingorother’s art I felt as if a sudden haze had swept over my eyes, blurring the picture until it reminded me of a cheap kind of decalcomania that in my boyhood days had satisfied my yearnings after the truly beautiful.

I made several ineffectual passes with my hands to brush the thing away. I had discovered that with certain classes of ghosts one could be rid of them, just as one may dissipate a cloud of smoke, by swirling one’s outstretched paw around in it, and I hoped that I might in this way rid myself of the nuisance now before me. But I was mistaken. He swirled, but failed to dissipate.

“Hum!” said I, straightening up, and addressing the thing with some degree of irritation. “You may know a great deal about art, my friend, but you seem not to have studied manners. Get out of my way.”

“Pah!” he ejaculated, turning a particularly nasty pair of green eyes on me. “Who the deuce are you, that you should give me orders?”

“Well,” said I, “if I were impulsive of speech and seldom grammatical, I might reply by saying Me, but as a purist, let me tell you, sir, that I’m I, and if you seek to know further and more intimately, I will add that who I am is none of your infernal business.”

“Humph!” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Grammatical or otherwise, you’re a coward! You don’t dare say who you are, because you are afraid of me. You know I am a specter, and, like all commonplace people, you are afraid of ghosts.”

A hot retort was on my lips, and I was about to tell him my name and address, when it occurred to me that by doing so I might lay myself open to a kind of persecution from which I have suffered from time to time, ghosts are sometimes so hard to lay, so I accomplished what I at the moment thought was my purpose by a bluff.

“Oh, as for that,” said I, “my name is So and So, and I live at Number This, That Street, Chicago, Illinois.”

Both the name and the address were of course fictitious.

“Very well,” said he, calmly, making a note of the address. “My name is Jones. I am the president of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, enjoying a well-earned rest from his labors on his savings from his salary as a walking delegate. You shall hear from me on your return to Chicago through the local chapter, the United Apparitions of Illinois.”

“All right,” said I, with equal calmness. “If the Illinois spooks are as Illinoisome as you are, I will summon the board of health and have them laid without more ado.”

Upon this we parted. That is to say, I walked on to the Uffizi, and he vanished, in something of a rage, it seemed to me.

I thought no more of the matter until a week ago, when, in accordance with an agreement with the principal thereof, I left New York to go to Chicago, to give a talk before a certain young ladies’ boarding-school, on the subject of “Muscular Romanticism.” This was a lecture I had prepared on a literary topic concerning which I had thought much. I had observed that a great deal of the popularity of certain authors had come from the admiration of young girls—mostly those at boarding-school, and therefore deprived of real manly company—for a kind of literature which, seeming to be manly, did not yet appeal very strongly to men. In certain aspects it seemed strong. It presented heroes who were truly heroic, and who always did the right thing in the right manner. Writers who had more ink than blood to shed, and a greater knowledge of etiquette than of human nature, were making their way into temporary fame by compelling chaps to do things they could not do. I rather like to read of these fellows myself. I am no exception to the rule which makes human beings admire, and very strongly, too, the fellow who poses successfully. Indeed, I admire a poseur who can carry his pose through without disaster to himself, because he has nothing to back him up, and, wanting this, if by his assurance he can make himself a considerable personage he falls short of genius only by lacking it. But this is apart from the story. Whatever the general line of thought in the lecture, I was, as I have said, on my way to Chicago to deliver it before a young ladies’ boarding-school. I should have been happy over the prospect, for I have many warm friends in Chicago, there was a moderately large fee ahead, and there is always a charm, as well, in the mere act of standing on a dais before some two or three hundred young girls and having their undivided attention for a brief hour. Yet, despite all this, I was dreadfully depressed. Why, I could not at first surmise. It seemed to me, however, as though some horrid disaster were impending. I experienced all the sensations which make four o’clock in the morning so dreaded an hour to those who suffer from insomnia. My heart would race ahead, thumping like the screw of an ocean greyhound, and then slow down until it seemingly ceased to beat altogether; my hands were alternately dry and hot, and clammy and cold; and then like a flash I knew why, and what it was I feared. It suddenly dawned upon my mind that, by some frightfully unhappy coincidence, the address of Miss Brockton’s Academy for Young Ladies, whither I was bound, was precisely the same as that I had given the vulgar little spook at Florence as my own. I had entirely forgotten the incident; and then, as I drew near to the spot whereon I was to have been made to suffer through the machinations of the local chapter of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, my soul was filled with dread. Had Grand-Master-Spook Jones’s threat been merely idle? Had he, even as I had done, dismissed the whole affair as unworthy of any further care, or would he keep his word?—indeed, had he kept his word, and, through his followers in the Amalgamated Brotherhood, made himself obnoxious to the residents of Number This, That Street?

My nervous dread redoubled as I neared Chicago, and it was as much as I could do, when the train reached Kalamazoo, to keep from turning back. And the event showed that I suffered with only too much reason, for, on my arrival at the home of the institution, I found it closed. The door was locked, the shades pulled down, the building the perfect picture of gloom. Miss Brockton, I was informed, was in a lunatic asylum, and two hundred and eighty-three young girls, ranging from fourteen to twenty years of age, had been returned to their parents, the hair of every mother’s daughter of them blanched white as the driven snow. No one knew, my informant said, exactly what had occurred at the academy, but the fact that was plain to all was that, some two weeks previous to my coming, the school had retired at the usual hour one night, in the very zenith of a happy prosperity, and gathered at breakfast the next morning to find itself wrecked, and bearing the outward semblance of a home for indigent old ladies. No one, from Miss Brockton herself to the youngest pupil, could give a coherent account of what had turned them all gray in a single night, and brought the furrows of age to cheeks both old and young, nor could any inducement be held out to any of the pupils to pass another night within those walls. They one and all fled madly back to their homes, and Miss Brockton’s attempted explanation was so incredible that, protesting her sanity, she was nevertheless placed under restraint, pending a full investigation of the incident.

She had, I was informed, asserted that some sixty ghosts of most terrible aspect had paraded through the house between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., howling and shrieking and threatening the occupants in a most terrifying fashion. At their head marched a specter brass-band of twenty-four pieces, grinding out with horrid contortions and grimaces the most awful discords imaginable—discords, indeed, Miss Brockton had said, alongside of which those of the most grossly material German street band in creation became melodies of soothing sweetness. The specter rabble to the rear bore transparencies, upon which were painted such legends as, “Hail to Jones, our beloved Chief!” “Strike One, Strike All!” and, “Down with Hawkins, the Grinder of Ghosts!” This last caused my heart to sink still lower, for Hawkins was the name I had given the vision at Florence, and I now understood all. It was only too manifest that I was the cause of the undoing of these innocents.

My lie to Jones had brought this disaster upon the Brockton Academy. The dreadfulness of it appalled me, and I turned away, sick at heart, only to find myself face to face with the horrid Jones, grinning like the cad he had proved himself.

“Well, you have done it,” I cried, trembling with rage. “I hope you are proud of yourself, venting your spite on an innocent woman and two hundred and eighty-three defenseless girls.”

He laughed.

“It was a pretty successful haunt,” he said; “and possibly, now that Mrs. Hawkins and your daughters—”

“Who?” I cried. “Mrs. What, and my which?”

“Your wife and children,” he replied. “Now that the local chapter has attended to them, maybe you’ll apologize to me for your boorish behavior at Florence.”

“Those people were nothing to me,” said I. “That was a boarding-school you have driven crazy. I was merely coming here to lecture—”

I immediately perceived my mistake. He could now easily discover my identity.

“Oho!” said he, with a broad, grim smile. “Then you lied to me at Florence, and you are not Hawkins, but the man they call the spook Boswell among us?”

“Yes, I am not Hawkins, and I am the other,” I retorted. “Make the most of it.”

“I thought that was rather a large family of girls for one man to have,” rejoined Jones. “But see here—are you going to apologize or not?”

“I am not,” I cried. “Never in this world nor in the next, you miserable handful of miasma!”

“Then, sir,” said he, firmly, “I shall order a general strike for the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, and the strike will be on until you do apologize. Hereafter you will have to derive your inspiration from a contemplation of unskilled spooks, and, if I understand matters, you will find some difficulty in raising even these, for there is not one that I know of who doesn’t belong to the union.”

With that he vanished, and I sadly made my way back to my home. Once at my desk again, I turned my attention to the work I had promised you, and, to my chagrin, discovered that while I had in mind all the ingredients of a successful Christmas story, I could not write it, because Grand-Master-Spirit Jones had kept his word. One and all, my selected group of spooks went out on strike. They absolutely refused to pose unless I apologized to Jones, and by no persuasions, threats, or cajoling have I been able since to make them rise up before me, that I might present them to my readers with that degree of fidelity which I deem essential. My home, which was once a sort of spirit club, is now bare of even a semblance of a ghost worth writing up, and, conjure as I may, I cannot bring them back. The strike is on, and I am its victim. But one miserable little specimen have I discovered since my interview with Jones, and so unskilled is he in the science of spooking that I give you my word he could not make a baby shiver on a dark night with the temperature twenty below zero and the wind howling like a madman without; and as for making hair stand on end, I tried him on a bit of hirsute from the tail of the timidest fawn in the Central Park zoo, and the thing fell over as limp as a strand from the silken locks of the Lorelei.

That, my dear sir, is why I cannot give you the story I have promised. I hope you will understand that the fault is not my own, but is the result of the evil tendency of the times, when the protective principle has reached the ultimate of tyrannous absurdity.

While Jones is at the head of the Amalgamated Brotherhood my case is hopeless, for I shall never apologize, unless he promises to restore to poor Mrs. Brockton and her two hundred and eighty-three pupils their former youthful gaiety and prosperity, which, I understand upon inquiry, he is unable to do, since the needed patent reversible spook, who will restore blanched hair to its natural color and return the bloom of youth to furrowed cheeks, has not yet been invented; and I, the only person in the world who might have invented it, am powerless, for while the boycott hangs over my head, as you will see for yourself, I am bereft of the raw material for the conducting of the necessary experiments.

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A Glance Ahead

BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE
OF A.D. 3568

Just how it came about, or how he came to get so far ahead, Dawson never knew, but the details are, after all, unimportant. It is what happened, and not how it happened, that concerns us. Suffice it to say that as he waked up that Christmas morning, Dawson became conscious of a great change in himself. He had gone to bed the night before worn in body and weary in spirit. Things had not gone particularly well with him through the year. Business had been unwontedly dull, and his efforts to augment his income by an occasional operation on the Street had brought about precisely the reverse of that for which he had hoped. This morning, however, all seemed right again. His troubles had in some way become mere memories of a remote past. So far from feeling bodily fatigue, which had been a pressingly insistent sensation of his waking moments of late, he experienced a startling sense of absolute freedom from all physical limitation whatsoever. The room in which he slept seemed also to have changed. The pictures on the walls were not only not the same pictures that had been there when he had gone to bed the night before, but appeared, even as he watched them, to change in color and in composition, to represent real action rather than a mere semblance thereof.

“Humph!” he muttered, as a lithograph copy of “The Angelus” before him went through a process of enlivenment wherein the bell actually did ring, the peasants bowing their heads as in duty bound, and then resuming their work again. “I feel like a bird, but I must be a trifle woozy. I never saw pictures behave that way before.” Then he tried to stretch himself, and observed, with a feeling of mingled astonishment and alarm, that he had nothing to stretch with. He had no legs, no arms—no body at all. He was about to indulge in an ejaculation of dismay, but there was no time for it, for, even as he began, a terrifying sound, as of rushing horses, over his bed attracted his attention. Investigation showed that this was caused by an engraving of Gérôme’s “Chariot Race,” which hung on the wall above his pillow—an engraving which held the same peculiar attributes that had astonished him in the marvelous lithograph of “The Angelus” opposite. The thing itself was actually happening up there. The horses and chariots would appear in the perspective rushing madly along the course, and then, reaching the limits of the frame, would disappear, apparently into thin air, amid the shoutings and clamorings of the pictured populace. Three times it looked as if a mass of horseflesh, chariots, charioteers, and dust would be precipitated upon the bed, and if Dawson could have found his head there is no doubt whatever that he would have ducked it.

“I must get out of this,” he cried. “But,” he added, as his mind reverted to his disembodied condition, “how the deuce can I? What’ll I get out with?”

The answer was instant. By the mere exercise of the impulse to be elsewhere the wish was gratified, and Dawson found himself opposite the bureau which stood at the far end of the room.

“Wonder how I look without a body?” he thought, as he ranged his faculties before the glass. But the mirror was of no assistance in the settlement of this problem, for, now that Dawson was mere consciousness only, the mirror gave back no evidence of his material existence.

“This is awful!” he moaned, as he turned and twisted his mind in a mad effort to imagine how he looked. “Where in thunder can I have left myself?”

As he spoke the door opened, and a man having the semblance of a valet entered.

“Good morning, Mr. Dawson,” said the valet—for that is what the intruder was—busying himself about the room. “I hope you find yourself well this morning?”

“I can’t find myself at all this morning!” retorted Dawson. “What the devil does this mean? Where’s my body?”

“Which one, sir?” the valet inquired, respectfully, pausing in his work.

“Which one?” echoed Dawson. “Wh—which—Oh, Lord! Excuse me, but how many bodies do I happen to have?” he added.

“Five—though a gentleman of your position, sir, ought to have at least ten, if I may make so bold as to speak, sir,” said the valet. “Your golf body is pretty well used up, sir, you’ve played so many holes with it; and I really think you need a new one for evening wear, sir. The one you got from London is rather shabby, don’t you think? It can’t digest the simplest kind of a dinner, sir.”

“The one I got from London, eh?” said Dawson. “I got a body in London, did I? And where’s the one I got in Paris?” he demanded, sarcastically.

“You gave that to the coachman, sir,” replied the valet. “It never fitted you, and, as you said yourself, it was rather gaudy, sir.”

“Oh—I said that, did I? It was one of these loud, assertive, noisy bodies, eh?”

“Yes, sir, extremely so. None of your friends liked you in it, sir,” said the valet. “Shall I fetch your lounging body, or will you wish to go to church this morning?” he continued.

“Bring ’em all in; bring every blessed bone of ’em,” said Dawson. “I want to see how I look in ’em all; and bring me a morning paper.”

“A what, sir?” asked the valet, apparently somewhat perplexed by the order.

“A morning paper, you idiot!” retorted Dawson, growing angry at the question. The man seemed to be so very stupid.

“I don’t quite understand what you wish, sir,” said the valet, apologetically.

“Oh, you don’t, eh?” said Dawson, amazed as well as annoyed at the man’s seeming lack of sense. “Well, I want to read the news—”

“Ah! Excuse me, Mr. Dawson,” said the valet. “I did not understand. You want the Daily Ticker.”

“Oh, do I?” ejaculated Dawson. “Well, if you know what I want better than I do, bring me what you think I want, and add to it a cup of coffee and a roll.”

“I beg your pardon!” the valet returned.

“A cup of coffee and a roll!” roared Dawson. “Don’t you know what a cup of coffee and a roll is or are? Just ask the cook, will you—”

“Ask the what, sir?” asked the valet, very respectfully.

“The cook! the cook! the cook!” screamed Dawson. His patience was exhausted by such manifest dulness.

“I—I’m sincerely anxious to please you, Mr. Dawson,” said his man; “but really, sir, you speak so strangely this morning, I hardly know what to do. I—”

“Can’t you understand that I’m hungry?” demanded Dawson.

“Oh!” said the valet. “Hungry, of course; yes, you should be at this time in the morning; but—er—your bodies have already been refreshed, sir; I have attended to all that as usual.”

“Ah! You’ve attended to all that, eh? And I’ve breakfasted, have I?”

“Your bodies have all been fed, sir,” said the valet.

“Never mind me, then,” said Dawson. “Bring in those well-fed figures of mine, and let me look at ’em. Meanwhile, turn on the—er—Daily Ticker.”

The valet bowed, walked across the room, and touched a button on a board which had escaped Dawson’s vigilant eye—possibly because his vigilant eye was elsewhere—and, with a sigh of perplexity, left the room. The response to the button pressure was immediate. A clicking as of a stock-ticker began to make itself heard, and from one corner of the bureau a strip of paper tape covered with letters of one kind and another emerged. Dawson watched it unfold for a moment, and then, approaching it, took in the types that were printed upon it. In an instant he understood a portion of the situation at least, although he did not wholly comprehend it. The date was December 25, 3568. He had gone to bed on Christmas eve, 1898. What had become of the intervening years he knew not—but this was undoubtedly the year of grace 3568, if the ticker was to be believed—and tickers rarely lie, as most stock-speculators know. Instead of living in the nineteenth century, Dawson had in some wise leaped forward into the thirty-sixth.

“Great Scott!” he cried. “Where have I been all this time? I don’t wonder my poor old body is gone!”

And then he started to peruse the news. The first item was a statement of governmental intent. It read something like a court circular.

“It is pleasant to announce on Christmas morning,” he read, “that the business of the Administration has proven so successful during the year that all loyal citizens, on and after January 1, will be paid $10,000 a month instead of only $7600, as hitherto. The United States Railway Department, under the management of our distinguished Secretary of Railways, Mr. Hankinson Rawley, shows a profit of $750,000,000,000 for the year. Mr. Johnneymaker, Secretary of Groceries, estimates the profits of his department at $600,000,000,000, and the Secretary of War announces that the three highly successful series of battles between France and Germany held at the Madison Square Garden have netted the Treasury over $500,000 apiece—no doubt due to the fact that Emperor Bismarck XXXVII. and King Dreyfus XLVIII. led their troops in person. The showing of the Navy Department is quite as good. The good business sense of Secretary Smithers in securing the naval fights between Russia and the Anglo-Indians for American waters is fully established by the results. The twenty encounters between his Indo-Britannic Majesty’s Arctic squadron and the Czar’s Baltic fleet in Boston Harbor alone have cleared for our citizens $150,000,000 above the guarantees to the two belligerents; whereas the bombardment of St. Petersburg by the Anglo-Indians under our management, thanks to the efficient service of the Cook excursion-steamers direct to the scene of action, has brought us in several hundred millions more. It should be quite evident by this time that the Barnum & Bailey party have shown themselves worthy of the people’s confidence.”

Dawson forgot all about his possible bodily complications in reading this. Here was the United States gone into business, and instead of levying taxes was actually paying dividends. It was magnificent.

One might have thought that the unexpected announcement of the possession of an income of $120,000 a year would be sufficient to destroy any interest in whatever other news the Ticker might present; but with Dawson it only served to whet his curiosity, and he read on:

“The acquirement of the department stores by the government in 2433 has proven a decided success. Floorwalker-General Barker announces that the last of the bonds given in payment for the goodwill of these institutions have matured and been paid off. This, too, out of the profits of four centuries. It is true that the laws requiring citizens to patronize these have helped much to bring about this desirable effect, and some credit for the present wholly satisfactory condition of affairs should be given to Senator Barca di Cinchona, of Peru, for having, in 2830, introduced the bill which for the time being covered him with execration. The profits for the coming year, on a conservative estimate, cannot be less than eighteen trillions of dollars—which, as our readers can see, will add much to the prosperity of the nation.”

“Worse and worse!” cried Dawson. “Floorwalker-General—compulsory custom—eighteen trillions of dollars!” And then he read again:

“It will be with unexpected pleasure this Christmas morning, too, that our citizens will read the President’s proclamation, in view of the unexampled prosperity of the past year, ordering a bonus of $15,000 gold to be delivered to every family in the land as a Christmas present from the Administration. This will relieve the vaults of the national Treasury of a store of coin that has been somewhat embarrassing to handle. The delivery-wagons will start on their rounds at six o’clock, and it is expected that by midday the money will have been wholly distributed. Residents of large cities are requested not to keep the carriers waiting at the door, since, as will be readily understood, the delivery of so much coin to so many millions of people is not an easy task. It is suggested that barrels of attested capacity be left on the walk, so that the coin may be placed into these without unnecessary delay. Those who still retain the old-fashioned coal-chutes can have the gold dumped into their cellars direct if they will simply have the covers to the coal-holes removed.”

Dawson could hardly believe the announcement. Here was $15,000 coming to him this very morning. It was too good to be true, he thought; but the news was soon confirmed by the valet, who interrupted his reading by bursting breathlessly into the room.

“What on earth are we going to do, Mr. Dawson?” he cried. “The Christmas present has arrived. The cart is outside now.”

“Do?” retorted Dawson. “Do? Why, get a shovel and shovel it in. What else?”

“That’s easier said than done, sir,” said the valet. “The gold-bin is chock-full already. You couldn’t get a two-cent piece into the cellar, much less three thousand five-dollar gold pieces. They’d ought to have sent that money in certified checks.”

Dawson experienced a sensation of mirth. The idea of quarreling as to the form of a $15,000 gift struck him as being humorous.

“Isn’t there any place but the gold-bin you can put it in?” he demanded. “How about the silver-bin, is that full?”

“I don’t know what you mean by the silver-bin,” replied the valet. “People don’t use silver for money nowadays, sir.”

“Oh, they don’t, eh? And what do they do with it—pave streets?”

The valet smiled.

“You are having your little joke with me this morning, Mr. Dawson,” he said, “or else you have forgotten that all we do with silver now is to make it into bricks and build houses with ’em.”

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” cried Dawson. “Really?”

“Certainly, sir,” observed the valet. “You must remember how silver gradually cheapened and cheapened until finally it ruined the clay-brick industry?”

“Ah, yes,” said Dawson. “I had temporarily forgotten. I do remember the tendency of silver to cheapen, but the ruin of the brick industry has escaped me. This house is—ah—built of silver bricks?”

“Of course it is, Mr. Dawson. As if you didn’t know!” said the valet, with a deprecatory smirk.

“Ah—about how much coal—I mean gold—have we in the cellar?” Dawson asked.

“In eagles we have $230,000, sir, but I think there’s half a million in fivers. I haven’t counted up the $20 pieces for eight weeks, but I think we have a couple of tons left, sir.”

“Then, James—Is your name James?”

“Yes, sir—James, or whatever else you please, sir,” said the valet, accommodatingly.

“Then, James, if I have all that ready cash in the cellar, you can have the $15,000 that has just come. I—ah—I don’t think I shall need it today,” said Dawson, in a lordly fashion.

“Me, sir?” said James. “Thank you, sir, but really I have no place to put it. I don’t know what to do with what I have already on hand.”

“Then give it to the poor,” said Dawson, desperately.

Again the valet smiled. He evidently thought his master very queer this morning.

“There ain’t any poor any more, sir,” he said.

“No poor?” cried Dawson.

“Of course not,” said James. “Really. Mr. Dawson, you seem to have forgotten a great deal. Don’t you remember how the forty-seventh amendment to the Constitution abolished poverty?”

“I—ah—I am afraid, James,” said Dawson, gasping for breath, “that I’ve had a stroke of some kind during the night. All these things of which you speak seem—er—seem a little strange to me, James. There seems to be some lesion in my brain somewhere. Tell me about—er—how things are. Am I still in the United States?”

“Yes, sir, you are still in the United States.”

“And the United States is bounded on the north by—”

“Sir, the United States has no northerly or southerly boundary. The Western Hemisphere is now the United States.”

“And Europe?”

“Europe has not changed much since 1900, sir. Don’t you remember how in the early years of the twentieth century the whole Eastern Hemisphere became European?”

“I remember that we took part in the division of China,” said Dawson.

“Oh yes,” said James, “quite so. But in 1920 don’t you recall how we swapped off our share in China, together with the Dewey Islands, for Canada and all other British possessions on this side of the earth?”

“Dimly, James, only dimly,” said Dawson, astonished, as well he might be, at the news, since he had never even imagined anything of the kind, although the Dewey Islands needed no explanation. “And we have ultimately acquired the whole hemisphere?”

“Yes, sir,” replied James. “The South American republics came in naturally in 1940, and the Mexican War in 2363 ended, as it had to, in the conquest of Mexico.”

“And, tell me, what are we doing with Patagonia?”

“One of the most flourishing States in the Union, Mr. Dawson. It was made the Immigrant State, sir. All persons immigrating to the United States, by an act of Congress passed in 2480, were compelled to go to Patagonia first, and forced to live there for a period of five years, studying American conditions, after which, provided they could pass an examination showing themselves equal to the duties of citizenship, they were permitted to go wherever else in the States they might choose.”

“And suppose they couldn’t pass?” Dawson asked.

“They had to stay in Patagonia until they could,” said James. “It is known as the School of Instruction of the States. It is also our penal colony. Instead of prisons, we have a section of Patagonia set apart for the criminal element.”

“And the negro?” asked Dawson. “How about him?”

“The negro, Mr. Dawson, if the histories say rightly, was an awful problem for a great many years. He had so many good points and so many bad that no one knew exactly what to do about him. Finally the sixty-third amendment was passed, ordering his deportation to Africa. It seemed like a hardship at first, but in 2863 he pulled himself together, and today has a continent of his own. Africa is his, and when nations are at war together they hire their troops from Africa. They make splendid soldiers, you know.”

“What’s become of Krüger and—er—Rhodes?” Dawson asked. “Turned black?”

James laughed. “Oh, Rhodes and Krüger! Why, as I remember it, they smashed each other. But that is ancient history, Mr. Dawson.”

“Jove!” cried Dawson. “What changes!” And then an idea crossed his mind. “James,” said he, “pack up my luggage. We’ll go to London.”

“Where?” asked James.

“To the British capital,” returned Dawson.

“Very well, sir,” said James. “I will buy return tickets for Calcutta at once, sir. Shall we go on the 1.10 or the 3.40? The 1.10 is an express, but the 3.40 has a buffet.”

“Which is the quicker?” Dawson asked.

“The 3.40 goes through in thirty-five minutes, sir. The 1.10 does it in half an hour.”

“Great Scott!” said Dawson. “I think, on the whole, James, I won’t try it until tomorrow. Calcutta, eh!” he added to himself. “James,” he continued, “when did Calcutta become the British capital?”

“In 2964, sir,” said James.

“And London?” queried Dawson.

“I don’t know much about those island towns, sir,” said James. “It’s said that London was once the British capital, but sensible people don’t believe it much. Why, it hasn’t more than twenty million inhabitants, mostly tailors.”

“And how many citizens does a modern city have to have, to amount to anything, James?” asked Dawson, faintly.

“Well,” said James scratching his head reflectively, “one hundred and sixty or two hundred millions, according to the last census.”

“And New York reaches to where?” Dawson asked, in a tentative manner.

“Oh, not very far. It’s only third, you know, in population. The last town annexed was Buffalo. The trouble with New York is that it has reached the limits of the State on every side. We’d make it bigger if we could, but Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey won’t give up an inch; and Canada is very jealous of her old boundaries.”

“Wisely,” said Dawson. And then he chose to be sarcastic. “Why don’t they fill in the ocean with ashes and extend the city over the Atlantic, James? In an age of such marvelous growth so much waste space should be utilized,” he said.

“Oh, it is,” returned the valet. “You, of course, know that all the West Indies are now connected by means of a cinder-track with the mainland?”

“And is the bicycle-path to the Azores built yet?” demanded Dawson, dryly.

“No, Mr. Dawson,” replied James. “That was given up in 2947, when the patent balloon tires were invented, by means of which wheelmen can scorch wherever they choose to through space, irrespective of roads.”

Dawson gasped. “For Heaven’s sake, James,” he cried, “I need air! Bring up the bodies, and let me get aboard one of ’em and take a sleigh-ride in Central Park. I can’t stand this much longer.”

The valet laughed heartily.

“Sleigh-rides have gone out in the Central Park, sir. When Mr. Bunkerton started his earth-heating-and-cooling plant snow was practically abolished hereabouts, Mr. Dawson,” said he. “It’s never cold enough for snow—always about seventy degrees.”

“Ah! The earth is heated from a central station, eh?” asked Dawson.

“Heated and cooled, sir. What with the hot and cold air running through flues from Vesuvius and the north pole into a central reservoir, an absolute mean temperature that never varies from one year’s end to another has been obtained. If you wish to take a sleigh-ride you’ll have to go to Mars, sir, and just at present the ships running both ways are crowded. They always are during the holiday season. I doubt if you could secure passage for a week.”

“Bring up the bodies!” roared Dawson. “I can’t express myself in this disembodied state. Mean temperature everywhere; income provided by government; no taxes; no poor; gold dumped into the cellar; houses built of silver; sleigh-riding at Mars. Bring up the bodies! Do you hear? The mere idea is wrecking my mind. Give me something physical, and give it to me quick.”

Dawson’s emotion was so overpowering that the valet was really frightened, and he fled below, whence he shortly reappeared, pushing before him a small wheeling vehicle in which sat three villanous-looking bodies, and a fourth, which Dawson, with a gasp of relief, recognized as his own.

“I thought you said I had five of these things?” he demanded, inspecting the bodies.

“So you have, sir. The one you wear for evening, sir, is being pressed. You fell asleep in it the other night, sir, and got it all wrinkled.”

“That golf fellow’s a gay-looking prig!” laughed Dawson. “Let me try him on.”

The valet stood the body up, and, opening a small door at the top of the skull, ingeniously concealed by the hair, invited Dawson to enter. Without even knowing how it came about, Dawson soon found himself in full possession. Then he walked over to the glass and peered in at himself.

“Humph!” he said. “Not much to look at, am I? Bring me a driver.”

James obeyed, and Dawson tried the swing.

“Why, the darned thing’s left-handed!” he said, after some awkward work. “I don’t like that.”

“You picked it out for yourself, sir,” replied the valet. “You said a left-handed player always rattled the other man, and, besides, it was the only one you ever had that could keep its eye on the ball.”

“Let me out! Let me out!” screamed Dawson. “I don’t like it, and I won’t have it. I’m suffocating. Open my head and let me out.”

The valet unfastened the little door, and Dawson emerged. “What’s that tough-looking one for?” he asked, after a pause, during which his brain throbbed with the excitement of his novel experience.

“Prize-fights,” said James.

“And the strange-looking thing that appears to have been designed for a fancy-dress ball?”

“Nobody knows what you intended that for, Mr. Dawson. You had it sent up yourself from the bodydasher’s last week, sir.”

“Well, take it away,” roared Dawson. “This may be 3568, but I haven’t lost my self-respect entirely. Give it to—ah—give it to the children to play with.”

“Really, Mr. Dawson,” said the valet, anxiously, “wouldn’t I better ring up the President and have him send a doctor here from the Department of Physic? You seem all astray this morning. There aren’t any children any more, sir.”

“Wha—what? No children?” cried Dawson.

“They were abolished three centuries ago, sir,” explained the valet.

“Then how the deuce is the world populated?” demanded Dawson.

“It was sufficiently populated at the time the law abolishing children was passed, sir.”

“But people die, don’t they?”

“Never,” replied the valet. “When Dr. Perkinbloom discovered how to separate man’s mental from his physical side, by means of this little door in the cranium, all the perishable portions of man were done away with, which is how it is, sir, that, for convenience’ sake, after the world was as full of consciousness as it could be comfortably, it was decided not to have any more of it.”

“But these bodies, James—these bodies?”

“Oh, they are manufactured—”

“But how?”

“That, sir, is the secret of the inventor,” replied the valet, “a secret which he is permitted by our government to retain, although the factories are maintained under the supervision of the Tailor-General.”

Dawson was silent. He was absolutely overpowered by the revelation.

“James,” he said, after a pause of nearly five minutes, “let me—let me back into my old self just for a moment, please. I—I feel faint, and sort of uncomfortable. I feel lost, don’t you know. I can grasp some of your ideas, but—Christmas without children! It does not seem possible.”

The valet respectfully raised up the original Dawson, opened the little door in the top of its head, and Dawson slipped in.

“Now lock that door,” said Dawson, quickly, once he was safe inside. The valet obeyed nervously.

“Give me the key,” said Dawson. “Quick!”

“Yes, sir,” said James, handing it over, eying his master anxiously meanwhile.

Dawson looked at it. It was a fragile bit of gold, but gold did not appeal to him at the moment, and before the valet could interfere to stop him he had hurled it far out of the window into the busy street below, where it was lost in the maze of traffic.

“There,” said Dawson; “I guess you’ll have a hard time getting me out of this again. You needn’t try. And meanwhile, James, you can kick those other bodies out into the street and dump the gold into the river; after which you may present my compliments to your darned old government, and tell it that it can go where the woodbine twineth. A government that abolishes children can go hang, so far as I am concerned.”

James sprang towards Dawson as if he had been stung. His face grew white with wrath.

“Sir,” he hissed, passionately, “the words that you have spoken are treason, and merit punishment.”

“What’s that?” cried Dawson, wrathfully.

“Treason is what I said,” retorted the valet, aroused. “If I thought you were in your right mind and knew what you were saying, I should conduct you forthwith to the police-station and inform against you to the Secretary of Justice.”

“Get out of here, you—you—you impertinent ass!” cried Dawson. “Leave the room! I—I—I discharge you! You forget your position!”

“It is you who forget your position,” returned the valet. “Discharge me! I like that. You might just as well try to discharge the President of the United States as me.”

Here the valet gave a scornful laugh, and leered maddeningly at Dawson. The latter gazed at him coldly.

“You are my servant?” he demanded.

“By government appointment, at your service,” replied James, with a satirical bow. “You have overlooked the fact that the government since 1900 has gradually absorbed all business—every function of labor is now governmental—and a man who arbitrarily bounces a cook, as the ancients used to put it, strikes at the administration. Charges may be preferred against a servant, but he cannot be deprived of his office except upon the report of a committee to the Department of Intelligence. As the President is your servant, so am I.”

Dawson sat down aghast, and clutched his forehead with his hands.

“But,” he cried, jumping to his feet, “that is intolerable. The logic of the thing makes you, while your party is in power—”

“Your governor,” interrupted the valet. “Come,” he added, firmly. “You called me an impertinent ass a moment ago, and my patience is exhausted. I shall inform against you. If you aren’t sent to Patagonia before night, my name is not James Wilkins.”

He laid his hand on Dawson’s shoulder roughly. A shock, as of electricity, went through Dawson’s person. His old-time strength returned to him, and, turning viciously upon the impudent fellow, he grasped him about his middle with both arms, and, after a struggle that lasted several minutes, dragged him to the window and hurled him, even as he had the key, down into the street below.

This done, he fell unconscious to the floor.

•    •    •

A year has passed since the episode, and Dawson has become the happiest man in the world, for on his return to consciousness, instead of finding himself in the hands of a revengeful valet, backed by a socialistic government, the past had been restored to him and the future relegated to its proper place. It was only the other night that he spoke of the value of his experience, however.

“It has made me happier, in spite of my many troubles,” he said. “If there’s anything that can make the present endurable it is the thought of what the future may have in store for us. A guaranteed income, and a detachable spirit, and no taxes, and a variety of imperishable bodies are all very nice, but servants with the manners of custom-house officials, and children abolished! No, thank you. Curious dream, though,” he added, “don’t you think?”

“No,” said I, “not very. It strikes me as a reasonable forecast of what is likely to be if things keep on as they are going. Especially in that matter of our servants.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a dream,” said Dawson. “Maybe, time having neither beginning nor ending, the future is, and I stumbled into it.”

“Maybe so,” said I. “I think, however, you’ll have some difficulty in finding that $15,000 again.”

“I don’t want to,” observed Dawson. “For don’t you see I’d find James Wilkins’s dead body beside it, and, in spite of its drawbacks, I prefer life in New York to the possibility of Patagonia.”

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Hans Pumpernickel’s
Vigil

Hans Pumpernickel was for many years regarded by his friends and neighbors in the little town of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz as the most industrious boy they had ever known. Where Hans came from no one knew. He had appeared in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz when he was not more than six years old. His name was all that he would confide to the curious.

“I’m Hans Pumpernickel,” he had answered, in response to the inquiries of the inquisitive. “But where I came from is neither here nor there.”

Some said that this statement was only half true, though many others believed it wholly. Certain it is, however, that if one has a hailing-place, a native town, it must be either here or there. If it is not here, it must be there, said some; but Hans never took the trouble to say anything further on the subject.

“And what are you going to do to live?” asked the Mayor’s wife, who took a great interest in the pretty little stranger when first she saw him.

“Breathe,” said Hans, simply. “For you see, ma’am, I cannot live without breathing, and so I have decided to do that.”

The Mayor said that this was impudence; but the good lady, who had made that somewhat crabbed old person’s life more happy than he deserved, only laughed, and said that she thought it was droll, and only wished her little boy, who was stupid like his father, could have said something as bright.

“But you cannot breathe unless you eat,” the Mayor’s wife had said, when Hans had spoken. “What are you going to eat?”

“I do not know,” said Hans. “What have you got?”

Again the Mayor growled “Impudence!” and again did the good lady laugh.

“We have sausages and cake and apples,” she said.

“Then,” said Hans, “I will have some sausages and cake and apples.”

“But we don’t give away things of that kind,” said the lady. “Those who would eat must work.”

“I cannot work unless I breathe,” said Hans; “and you yourself have said that I cannot breathe unless I eat. Therefore, if you would have me work, you must let me eat.”

“Logic!” cried the Mayor, beginning to take an interest in Hans. “Give the boy an apple.”

So Hans was given the apple, and he ate it so thoroughly that the Mayor decided that he was just the boy to do little errands for him, for thoroughness was a quality he greatly admired, and from that time on Hans lived in the Mayor’s family; and when the stupid little son of that exalted personage ran away from home and became a cabin-boy on a man-of-war, the Mayor adopted Hans, and he took the place of the boy who had gone away, refusing, however, much to the Mayor’s sorrow, to change his name from Pumpernickel to Ehrenbreitstein, which happened to be the last name of the Mayor.

“Pumpernickel was I born,” said Hans, “and Pumpernickel will I remain. Why should I, a Pumpernickel who am bound to make a name for myself sooner or later, take the name of someone else, and shed the luster of my fame upon his family?”

All of which was very sensible, though Mayor Ehrenbreitstein did not appreciate that fact.

So Hans went on making himself very useful to the Mayor and his wife. He would shell pease in the morning for the Lady Mayor, and in the afternoon he would write speeches for the Mayor to deliver on public occasions; and people said that as a public speaker the Mayor was improving, while all who had the pleasure of dining with the head of the city frequently complimented the Lady Mayor upon the excellence of the pease served at her banquets. In every way was Hans satisfactory to all for whom he worked. After a while such confidence did he inspire in his employers that Frau Ehrenbreitstein let him do all her shopping for her, and most of the Mayor’s duties were intrusted to the boy. He could match ribbons and veto or approve the doings of the aldermen of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz with equal perfection. The ribbons he matched and the worsteds he chose for his kind mistress always looked well, and the lady soon became in the popular estimation a person of unusually good taste, while the vetoes and other public papers were so well phrased that even his opponents were forced to admit that the magistrate was right.

Hans bore all his prosperity with modesty, and for the fifteen years during which he faithfully served his employers he developed no conceit whatsoever, as many a weaker boy might reasonably have done, and, barring one peculiarity, none of the eccentricities of the truly great ever manifested themselves. This one peculiarity excited much curiosity among those who had heard of it, but despite all questionings Hans declined to say why he had it. It was a peculiarity that was indeed peculiar. It was noticed that from the time he first ate with the family of the Mayor he would set apart one full third of every dainty that was placed upon his plate, and when the meal was over he would take it away from the table rolled up in a napkin. For instance, if at breakfast three sausages fell to the lot of Hans, he would eat two of them, and the third he would wrap up in a napkin, and take it to his room. So it was with everything else that came his way. Out of every three apples one would go untouched into the napkin; and later, when he began to earn a little money, one-third of it also would be saved. It was noticed, too, that on every Friday afternoon Hans would send away a big box by the express carrier, but to whom the box was sent no one could learn. The express carrier would not tell, and Hans himself, when asked about it, would say to the one who asked him:

“Let me see. You are in what business?”

“I am a baker,” or, perhaps, “I am a butcher,” the inquisitive one would say.

“Then,” said Hans, “if I were you, I would stick to baking or to butching, and not embark on enterprises which are not allied to the making of bread or the slaughter of roast beef.”

The people so addressed would turn away chagrined, but with proper apologies; and when they apologized Hans would say, with a smile, “Pray don’t mention it,” so kindly that the meddlers would be pacified, and no ill feeling ever resulted from the young boy’s request that they mind their own business.

At the end of the fifteen years of faithful work, however, a great change seemed to come over Hans. He began to show a great distaste for the labors that he had hitherto spent his time in performing. When Frau Ehrenbreitstein gave him a skein of pink zephyr to take to town to match, he would try to beg off, and when he could not beg off he did worse. He went to town and brought back, not the new skein of pink zephyr that his mistress wanted, but a roll of green and yellow wallpaper, and, when she expressed surprise, he said that that was the best he could do.

“But I didn’t want wallpaper,” cried the Lady Mayor.

“Well, you never told me that,” said Hans. “You said, I admit, that you wanted pink zephyr; but then one might wish for that and still want a roll of green and yellow wallpaper.”

“Are you crazy?” returned the good lady, much mystified.

“I think not; and the mere fact that I think not shows that I am not,” Hans replied, “for the very good reason that if I had lost my mind I could not think at all.”

“Very well,” said Frau Ehrenbreitstein, reassured by this perfectly logical answer. “You may go and shell the pease.”

Whereupon Hans went down into the kitchen and shelled the pease, only he retained the pods this time, and threw the pease to the pigs.

“It is very evident to me,” observed his good mistress to her husband that night, when the pods were served at dinner, “that Hans Pumpernickel has something on his mind.”

“Yes, my dear,” answered the Mayor. “I know he has, and I know what it is.”

“He is not in love, I hope?” said Frau Ehrenbreitstein.

“Not he!” cried the Mayor. “He is thinking about what I shall say to the Emperor next week when his Imperial Majesty and the Chancellor pass through Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz on their way to the Schutzenfest at Würtemburger-Darmstadt. I have told Hans that the imperial train stops at our station to water the engine, and during the five minutes or so in which the Emperor honors our burg with his presence it is only fitting that I, as Lord Mayor, should greet him with an address of welcome. It will be the opportunity of my life, and the boy is trying to enable me to be equal to it. Heaven forbid that he should fail!”

This explanation eased the mind of the Mayor’s wife, and she refrained from asking Hans to shell pease and match zephyrs until after the Emperor had come and gone. Unfortunately, however, this was not the real cause of the trouble with Hans, as the speech he wrote for the Mayor to deliver to his imperial master showed; for, to the dismay of Mayor Ehrenbreitstein, when the Emperor’s train stopped at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and he had unrolled the address Hans had written, he discovered that Hans had not written a speech at all, but a comic poem, in which his Imperial Majesty was referred to as a royal turkey-cock, with a crow like the squeak of a penny flute. The poor Mayor nearly expired when his eyes rested on the lines Hans had written; but he went bravely ahead and made up a speech of his own, which his Majesty fortunately did not hear, owing to the noise made by the steam escaping from the engine whistle.

When the Emperor had departed, the Mayor returned home in a rage, and you may be sure that Hans could not get in a word edgewise even until his employer had told him what he thought of him.

“Excuse me,” said Hans, when the Mayor had finished, after an hour’s angry tirade—“excuse me, but would you mind saying that over again? I was thinking of something else.”

“Say it over again?” shrieked the Mayor. “Never. I shall never speak to you again.”

“But what have I done?” asked Hans, so innocently that the Mayor relented and repeated his tirade, and then Hans broke down.

“Did I do that?” he said. “Then it is very plain that I need a vacation.”

“I think so,” retorted the Mayor. “You may take the next thousand years without pay.”

“One year will be sufficient,” said Hans. “Though I thank you just as kindly for the others.” Then he wept, and the Mayor’s wife took pity on him, and asked him to tell her what it was that had so occupied his mind of late that he had committed so many grievous errors, and Hans told her all.

“It’s my great-great-great-great-great-granduncle’s fault,” he sobbed.

“Your what?” cried his mistress.

“My great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the perpetual baby,” said Hans, wiping his eyes. “He’s the worst baby you ever saw. He yells and howls and howls and yells all the time, and if he is left alone or put down for a moment he has a convulsion of rage that is terrible to witness. He breaks his toys the minute he gets them, and for fifteen years he has made a slave of my poor father, who has not let the child out of his lap in all that time.”

“Fifteen years?” cried Frau Ehrenbreitstein. “What do you mean? How old is this baby?”

“Three hundred and forty-seven years, six months, and eight days,” said Hans, ruefully, consulting a pocket calendar he had with him. “During my time with you,” he added, “I have supported them. Father is alone in the house with the infant; we could not afford a servant, and the child yells so all the time that my father cannot get employment anywhere. It was this that drove me out into the world to earn a living for them. When I got only my food and bed, I shared my food with them, sending off a third of it every week. Then when money came along, I gave them a third of that; but the baby is as bad as ever, and father has written to say that he can stand it no more, and I must return home or he will send the baby to me here.”

“But, mercy me!” roared the Mayor, who had come in and heard the story, “why doesn’t the child grow?”

“He can’t,” sobbed Hans. “His mother once made a wish that he might always remain a baby, and it happened that she made the wish at the one instant of the year when all wishes are granted by the fairies.”

“Nonsense,” said the Mayor. “There are no fairies.”

“Indeed, there are,” said Hans. “There is my great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, the baby, to prove it. He’s a little tyrant, and he has worn out every generation of the family since, making them look after him. It’s terrible, and in trying to think what to do to relieve my poor father and still support myself I have neglected everything else, and that is why I—boo-hoo!—I wrote the wallpaper and matched a pink Emperor with a green and yellow comic poem.”

“Poor lad!” said the Mayor’s wife. “Poor lad! It is a cruel story.”

“It is that,” agreed the Mayor. “But cheer up, Hans. If there is an instant in every year when wishes are always granted by the fairies, why don’t you wish the baby as he ought to be at the right moment?”

“That’s the trouble,” said Hans, sadly. “There are many instants in a year, and the lucky moment changes every twelve months. It is never the same. I wish, and wish, but never at the right moment. Sometimes I forget it; the instant comes and is gone, though I don’t know it.”

“Well,” said the Mayor’s wife, “there is but one thing you can do. That is, to devote a whole year to nothing else but that wish. I shall fix you up a chair in the kitchen, give you a pipe, and on New-Year’s morning you may begin. You shall have no other duties but to wish for a restoration of things as they should be. You will be sure to hit the right moment if you are faithful to your work.”

“As I always am,” said Hans, drying his tears.

And so it was that Hans Pumpernickel began his long vigil. He sat in the kitchen, silent, smoking, gazing at the ceiling, wishing. It was weary work indeed, but he was true, and last year, on the sixteenth day of July, at half-past one o’clock in the morning, his fidelity was rewarded, though he did not know it until the next morning, when the expressman brought him a message from his father to the following effect:

July 16, 1893

My dear Hans,—Don’t worry; everything is serene again. At half-past one o’clock this morning, just as the clock struck, your great-great-great-great-great-granduncle began to grow at a most rapid pace. I had hardly time to drop him when he was taller than I, and twice as stout as I am told you are. A beard sprouted on his face with equal rapidity, and, just as I thought to ask him what he was going to do next, he gave a deafening shout of laughter and disappeared entirely. The whole affair didn’t last more than five seconds. The spell has been removed, and the perpetual baby is no more. Come over and see me, and we’ll celebrate our emancipation.

Affectionately, your daddy,

Rupert Pumpernickel.

Hans read this letter with a joyful face, and rushed upstairs to tell the Mayor and his faithful helpmate of his good fortune, and there was great rejoicing for several days. Then Hans visited his father, and the two happy creatures spent weeks and weeks rambling contentedly about the country together, at the end of which time Hans returned to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, where, the Emperor having retired the Mayor on a liberal pension for his attentions and kind expressions of regard in the speech Hans did not write for him, he was chosen to succeed his former master.

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The Affliction of
Baron Humpfelhimmel

Everybody said it was an extraordinary affair altogether, and for once everybody was right. Baron Humpfelhimmel himself would say nothing about it for two reasons. The first reason was that nobody dared ask him what he thought about it, and the second was that he was too proud to speak to anybody concerning any subject whatsoever, unless questioned. That he always laughed, no matter what happened, was the melancholy fact, and had been a melancholy fact from his childhood’s earliest hour. He was born laughing. He laughed in church, he laughed at home. When his father spanked him he roared with laughter, and when he suffered from the measles he could not begin to restrain his mirth.

The situation seemed all the more singular when it was remembered that Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the previous Baron Humpfelhimmel, and father of the Laughing Baron, as he was called, was never known to smile from his childhood’s earliest hour to his dying day, and, strangest of all, was a far more amiable person, despite his solemnity, than the present Baron for all his laughter.

“What does it mean, do you suppose?” Frau Ehrenbreitstein once asked of Hans Pumpernickel, her husband’s private secretary, of whom you have already had some account.

“I cannot tell,” Hans had answered, “and I have my reason for saying that I cannot tell,” he added, significantly.

“What is that reason, Hans?” asked the good lady, her curiosity aroused by the boy’s manner.

“It is this,” said Hans, his voice sinking to a whisper. “I cannot tell, because—because I do not know!”

And this, let me say in passing, was why Hans Pumpernickel was thought by all to be so wise. He had a reason always for what he did, and was ever willing to give it.

“They say,” the good Lady Ehrenbreitstein went on—“they do say that when last winter the Baron while hunting boars was thrown from his horse, breaking his leg and two of his ribs, they could not be set because of his convulsions of laughter, though for my part I cannot see wherein having one’s leg and ribs broken is provocative of merriment.”

“Nor I,” quoth Hans. “I have an eye for jokes. In most things I can see the fun, but in the breaking of one’s bones I see more cause for tears than smiles.”

And it was true. As Frau Ehrenbreitstein had heard, the Baron Humpfelhimmel had broken one leg and two ribs—only it was while hunting wolves and not in a boar chase—and when the Emperor’s physician, who was one of the party, came to where the suffering man lay he found him roaring with laughter.

“Good!” cried the physician, leaning over his prostrate form. “I am glad to see that you are not hurt. I feared you were injured.”

“I am injured,” the Baron replied, with a loud laugh. “My left leg—ha-ha-ha!—is nearly killing me—hee-hee!—with p-pain, and if I mistake not, either my heart—ha-ha-ha-ha!—or my ribs—hee-hee-hee!—are broken in nineteen places.”

Then he went off into such an explosion of mirth as not only appeared unseemly, but also deprived him of the power of speech for five or six minutes.

“I fail to see the joke,” said the physician, as the Baron’s laughter echoed and reechoed throughout the forest.

“Th-there—hee-hee!—there isn’t a-any joke,” the Baron answered, smiling. “Confound you—ha-ha-ha-ha!—oho-ho-ho!—can’t you see I’m suffering?”

“I see you are laughing,” the physician replied—“laughing as if you were reading a comic paper full of real jokes. What are you laughing at?”

“Ha-ha! I—I d-dud-don’t know,” stammered the Baron, vainly endeavoring to suppress his mirth. “I—I don’t feel like laughing—hee-hee!—but I can’t help it.” And off he went into another gale. Nor did he stop there. The physician tried vainly to quiet him down so that he could set the fractured bones, but in spite of all he could do for him the Baron either would not or could not stop laughing. When he was able to move about again it was only with a limp, and even that appeared to have its humorous side, for whenever the Baron appeared on the public streets he was always smiling, and when the Mayor ventured to express his sympathy with him over his misfortune the Baron laughed again, and mirthfully requested him to mind his own business.

Then it was recalled how that ten years before, when the famous Von Pepperpotz Castle was destroyed by fire, the Baron was found writing in his study by the messenger who brought the news.

“Baron,” the messenger cried—“Baron, the château is burning. The flames have already destroyed the armory, and are now eating their way through the corridors to the state banquet-hall.”

The Baron looked the messenger in the eye for an instant, and then his face wreathed with smiles.

“My castle’s burning, eh? Ha-ha-ha!” was what he said; and then, rising hurriedly from his desk, he hastened, shouting with laughter, to the scene, where no one worked harder than he to stay the devastating course of the flames.

“You seem to be pleased,” said one who noticed his merriment.

The Baron’s answer was a blow which knocked the fellow down, and then, striking him across the shoulders with his staff, he walked away, muttering to himself:

“Pleased! Ha-ha-ha! Does ruin please anybody—tee-hee-hee! If the churls only—tee-hee!—only knew—ha-ha-ha-ha!”

That was it! If they only knew! And no one did know until after the Baron had died without children—for he had never married—and all his possessions and papers became the property of the state. Through these papers the secret of the Baron’s laughter became known to the good people of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and through them it became known to me. Hans Pumpernickel himself told me the tale, and as he has risen to the exalted position of Mayor of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, an honor conferred only on the truly good and worthy, I have no reason to doubt that the story is in every way truthful.

“When Baron Humpfelhimmel died,” said Hans, as he and I walked together along the beautiful sylvan path that runs by the side of the Zugvitz River, “I am sorry to say there were few mourners. A man who laughs, as a rule, is popular, but the man who laughs always, without regard to circumstances, makes enemies. One learns to love a person who laughs at one’s jests, but one who laughs at funerals, at conflagrations, at beggars, at the needy and the distressed, does not become universally beloved. Such was the habit of Fritz von Pepperpotz, last of the Barons Humpfelhimmel. If you were to go to him with a funny story, none would laugh more heartily than he; but equally loud would he laugh were you to say to him that you had a racking headache, and should it chance that you were to inform him you had been desperately ill, his mirth would know no bounds. Even in his greatest frenzies of rage he would smirk and laugh, and so it happened that the popularity which you would expect would go with a mirthful disposition was the last thing in the world he could hope for. I do not exaggerate when I say that Baron Humpfelhimmel could not have been elected office-boy to the Mayor on a popular vote, even if there were no opposing candidate. Now that it is all over, however, and we know the truth, we have changed our minds about it, and already several hundred of our citizens have raised a fund of twenty marks to go towards putting up a monument to the memory of the Laughing Baron.

“Fritz von Pepperpotz, my friend,” said Hans to me, in explanation of the situation, “laughed because he could not help it, as a statement found among his papers after he died showed. The statement contained the whole story, and in some of its details it is a sad one. It was all the fault of the grandfather of the late Baron that he could do nothing but laugh all his days, that he died unmarried, and that the name of Von Pepperpotz has died off the face of the earth forever, unless someone else chooses to assume that name, which, I imagine, no one is crazy enough to do. The only thing that could reconcile me to such a name would be the estates that formerly went with it, but now that they have become the property of the government the house has lost all of its attractions, retaining, however, every bit of its homeliness. Pumpernickel is bad enough, but it is beautiful beside Von Pepperpotz.”

Here Hans sighed, and to comfort him, rather than to say anything I really meant, I observed that I thought Pumpernickel was a good strong name.

“Yes,” Hans said, with a pleased smile. “It certainly is strong. I have had mine twenty-five years now, and it doesn’t show the slightest sign of wear. It’s as good as the day it was made. But to return to the Von Pepperpotz family and its mysterious affliction.

“According to the Baron’s statement, while he himself could not restrain his mirth, no matter how badly he felt, his father, Rupert von Pepperpotz, could never smile, although he was a man of most genial disposition. Just as Fritz was ushered into the world, grinning like a Cheshire cheese—”

“Cat,” I suggested, noting Hans’s error.

“Cat, is it?” he said. “Well, now, do you know I am glad to hear that? I always supposed the term used was cheese, and positively I have lain awake night after night trying to comprehend how a cheese could grin, and finally I gave it up, setting it down as one of the peculiarities of the English language. If it’s Cheshire cat, and not Cheshire cheese, why, it’s all clear as a pikestaff. But, as I was saying, just as Fritz was born grinning like a Cheshire cat, his father Rupert was born frowning apparently with rage. He was the most ill-natured-looking baby you ever saw, according to the chronicles. Nothing seemed to please him. When you or I would have cooed, Rupert von Pepperpotz would wrinkle up his forehead until the furrows, if his nurse tells the truth, were deep enough to hide letters in.

“And yet he was rarely cross, and never disobedient. It was the strangest thing in the world. Here was a being who always frowned and never laughed, and yet who was as obliging in his actions as could be. As he grew older his active amiability increased, but his frown grew more terrible than ever. He became a great wit. As he walked through the streets of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he was always merry, though none would have guessed it to look at him. He had a pleasant voice, and his neighbors all said it was a most startling thing to hear in the distance a jolly, roistering song, and then to walk along a little way and see that it was this forbidding-looking person who was doing the singing.

“How Rupert got Wilhelmina de Grootzenburg to become his wife, considering his seeming solemnity, which made him appear to be positively ugly, nobody ever knew. It is probable, however, that it was sympathy which moved her to like him, unless it was that his ugliness fascinated her. Rupert himself said that it was not sympathy for his inability to laugh or smile, because he did not want sympathy for that. He didn’t feel badly about it himself. He never had smiled, and so did not know the pleasure of it. Consequently he didn’t miss it. Smiling was an idiotic way of expressing pleasure anyhow, he said. Why just because a man thought of a funny idea he should stretch his mouth he couldn’t see. No more could he understand why it was necessary to show one’s appreciation of a funny story by shaking one’s stomach and saying Ha-ha! On the whole, he said that he was satisfied. He could talk and could tell people he enjoyed their stories without having to shake himself or disturb the corners of his mouth. When little Fritz was born, and did nothing but laugh even when he had the colic, the solemn-looking Rupert observed that the baby simply proved the truth of what he said.

“‘What a donkey the child is,’ he cried, ‘to spoil his pretty face by stretching his mouth so that you almost fear his ears will drop into it! And those wild whoops, which you call laughter, what earthly use are they? I can’t see why, if he is glad about something, he can’t just say, “I’m glad about so and so,” mildly, instead of making me deaf with his roars. Truly, laughter is not what it is cracked up to be.’

“‘Ah, my dear Rupert,’ Wilhelmina, his wife, had said, ‘you do not really know what you are talking about! If you could enjoy the sensation of laughing once you would never wish to be without it.’

“‘Nonsense!’ replied the Baron. ‘My father never laughed, so why should I wish to?’

“Now, then,” continued Hans, “according to Fritz von Pepperpotz’s statement, there was where Rupert was wrong. Siegfried von Pepperpotz had known what it was to laugh, but he had not known when to laugh, which was why the family of Von Pepperpotz was afflicted with a curse, which only the final dying out of the family could remove, and there lay the solution of the mystery. It seems that Siegfried von Pepperpotz, grandfather of Fritz and father of Rupert, had been a wild sort of a youth, who smiled when he wished and frowned when he wished, no matter what the occasion may have been, and he smiled once too often. A miserable-looking figure of a man once passed through the village of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, selling sugar dolls and other sweets. To Siegfried and his comrades it seemed good to play a prank on the old fellow. They sent him two miles off into the country, where, they said, was a rich countess, who would buy his whole stock, when in reality there was no rich countess there at all, so that the old man had his trouble for his pains.

“That he was a magician they did not know, but so he was, and in those days magicians could do everything. Of course he was angry at the deception, and on his return to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz he sent for the young men, and got all of them to apologize and buy his wares except Siegfried. Siegfried not only refused to apologize and buy the old man’s candies, but had the audacity to laugh in his face, and tell him about a wealthy old duke who lived two miles out on the other side of the village, which the magician immediately recognized as another attempt to play a practical joke upon him.

“‘Enough, Siegfried von Pepperpotz!’ he cried, in his rage. ‘Laugh away while you can. After today may you never smile, and may your son never smile, and may your son’s son, willing or unwilling, smile smiles that you two would have smiled, and so may it ever go! May every third generation get the laughter that the preceding two shall lose, according to my curse!’

“This made Siegfried laugh all the harder, for, not knowing, as I have said, that the old man was a magician, he had no fear of him. Next day, however, he changed his mind. He found that he could not laugh. He could not even smile. Try as he would, his lips refused to do his bidding.

“It ruined his disposition. Siegfried von Pepperpotz grew ill over it. The greatest doctors in the world were summoned to his aid, but to no avail. If the curse had ended with him he might not have minded it so much, but after the discovery that from the day of his birth his son Rupert was no more able to laugh than himself he began to brood over the affliction, and shortly died of it; and when Fritz found out from a paper he discovered in a secret drawer in the old chest in the château what the curse was—for Siegfried never told his son, and alone knew from what it was he suffered, and that it was perpetual—he resolved that there should be no further posterity to whom it should be handed down.

“That,” said Hans, “is the story of Baron Humpfelhimmel’s affliction.”

“And a strange story it is,” said I. “Though I don’t know that it has any particular moral.”

“Oh yes, it has!” said Hans. “It has a good moral.”

“And what is that?” I asked.

“Don’t laugh at your own jokes,” he replied. “If Siegfried von Pepperpotz had not laughed when the magician came back, he never would have been cursed, and this story never would have been told.”

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A Great Composer

Among the best-known residents of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz when Hans Pumpernickel first appeared in that beautiful city were three musicians—Herr von Kärlingtongs, who was the only, and consequently the best, violinist in town, Dr. Otto Teutonstring, and Heinrich Flatz, who had played the ’cello once before the King of Prussia with such effect that the king said he’d never heard anything like it before. The town was naturally very proud of the trio, and particularly of Dr. Teutonstring, who, though far from being a muscular man, had once played the bass-viol for sixteen consecutive hours in the musical contest at the Schnitzelhammerstein carnival, beating by one hour and twenty-two minutes the strongest and most enduring bass-viol player in Germany. They were the most amiable old gentlemen in the world. It very seldom happened that they failed to agree, which was rather wonderful, because it often happens, unhappily, that musicians grow jealous of one another, and say and do things that make it impossible for them to live together peaceably. You may not all of you remember that famous and very sad instance of the lengths to which this jealousy is sometimes allowed to run wherein Luigi Sparragini, the well-known Italian violinist, in his rage at the applause received at a concert by his rival, Siegfried von Heimstetter, broke a Stradivarius violin valued at a thousand pounds over Von Heimstetter’s head, to be rebuked in return by Von Heimstetter, who induced Sparragini to look at the mechanism of a grand piano he had, letting the cover fall on the other’s head as soon as he had poked it in, thereby utterly ruining the piano and severely injuring Sparragini’s nose.

Nothing of this kind, as I have intimated, ever marred the serenity of the three amiable musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.

“We have no cause each other to be jealous of,” Herr von Kärlingtongs had said. “I the fiddle play; they the fiddle do not play.”

“True,” observed Heinrich Flatz. “The potato just as well the watermelon might be jealous of. If I the fiddle played, then might I Von Kärlingtongs be jealous of. Therefore also already can the same be said regarding Teutonstring. In no manner are we each other the rivals of.”

In all of which, as Hans Pumpernickel said to me, there was much common-sense. “Discord is not music,” said he, “and if these men were discordant they would not be musicians. If they were not musicians they would have to make a living in some other kind of business. They are not fit for any other kind of business, wherefore they are wise as well as amiable.”

The consequence of all this harmony between the three dear old gentlemen was that they were always together. They practiced together, and on public occasions they played together, and their fellow-townsmen were delighted with them. At weddings they played the wedding-marches, each as earnestly as though he were playing a solo. At the Mayor’s banquets they were always present, adding much to the pleasure of these sumptuous repasts by the soft and beautiful strains which they discoursed. “I am not a king,” said Mayor Ehrenbreitstein upon one of these occasions; “but if I were, I could not hear better music. We have an orchestra without a court. What more can we desire?”

“Nothing,” said Hans Pumpernickel, “unless it be another tune.”

“A good idea,” cried one of the aldermen. “Let us have another tune.”

And so the cry would go about the board, and the three happy old gentlemen would good-naturedly go to work again and play another tune. It came about very naturally, then, that whenever a rival band of musicians, desirous of wresting the laurels from the respective brows of Herren Von Kärlingtongs, Teutonstring, and Flatz, came to Schnitzelhammerstein, they found them so strongly intrenched in the affections of the people that, while they lived and played in harmony together, no others could hope to make a living from music in that community. They rapidly grew rich; for it came to pass that, with the exception of house rent, and new strings for their instruments, and other mere incidentals of a musician’s work, they had no expenses to pay. Their food cost them nothing, they attended so many banquets; and when, occasionally, a day would come upon which no breakfast, luncheon, or dinner required their services, it was always found that they had carried away enough fruit and cake and other dainties from the affairs that had been given to last them through such rare intervals as found them without an engagement.

In other respects, too, did these worthies show themselves entitled to be called wise. Some five years after they began to grow famous in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, some of their admirers suggested that they ought not to confine themselves to the small town in which they had waxed so great, but should go out into the world and dazzle all mankind by the brilliance of their playing.

“The great orchestras of Austria,” said one of these, “do not content themselves with laurels won at home. They travel into far countries, and win fame and fortune all the world over. Why do not you go?”

“We will talk it over,” Herr Teutonstring replied. “I for one am opposed to making such a trip, because I am an old man, and my bass-viol is heavy.”

“Can you not send it about by freight?” said the man who proposed the scheme.

“Would you send your child by freight?” asked Herr Teutonstring.

“I would not,” returned the other.

“No more can I send my bass-viol by freight,” said Herr Teutonstring, fondly twanging the strings of his huge instrument. “This is my whole family. I love it as I would a child for whom I must care; as a father who has helped me to become what I am. Nevertheless, we will talk it over.”

And they did talk it over, and as a result decided that the world, if it desired to hear them play, must come to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.

“If we go,” said Herr Von Kärlingtongs, “who will provide music for Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz?”

“Who, indeed?” said Heinrich Flatz, gazing at the floor after the manner of the truly wise man.

“Since you have both asked that question,” said Herr Teutonstring, “out of mere politeness I must answer it. My answer is, briefly, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“But someone must,” persisted Von Kärlingtongs.

“Yes,” said the others.

“Then one of two things must happen,” said Von Kärlingtongs. “Either by our absence the people of this town must be deprived of good music, which would be very ungrateful of us, who have gained so much profit from them, or they must discover that there are others who can play as well as we do, whereby we would cease to be the greatest in the world—which strikes me as bad policy.”

“Von Kärlingtongs,” said Heinrich Flatz, with tears of joy in his eyes, “you are not only a musician, you are a thinker.”

“Do not flatter me, my dear Flatz,” said Von Kärlingtongs, modestly. “You do not know what a struggle it is to me to keep from giving way to pride.”

“Well, I agree to all that you have said,” said Herr Teutonstring; “and I have to add that, as we are only young in spirit, and as my bass-viol is very heavy, I think we should be content to remain at home.”

“Particularly,” added Heinrich Flatz, “in view of the fact that there can be but one result. We should succeed. Now where is the gratification in success? Simply in the knowledge that you have succeeded. We know that now. Wherefore why should we put ourselves to inconveniences simply to find out what we already know? Does a man with a pantryful of tarts go seeking tarts? He does not—”

“If he is wise,” said Herr Teutonstring.

“And we are wise,” added Herr von Kärlingtongs.

“Which settles the point. We’ll stay at home,” said Herr Flatz.

And they did, and subsequent events showed the wisdom of their course, for in less than a year’s time the King came to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz.

Some said that he stopped there merely because there was a better luncheon-counter at the railway station than anywhere else along the road. Others persisted that his Majesty had heard of the marvelous powers of the three musicians, and, being fond of music, had traveled all the way from the capital, a distance of more than a hundred miles, to hear them. However this was, the fact remained that the King announced that for two hours he would be the guest of the little city concerning which we have spoken so much. The town naturally was all of a flutter, and great preparations were made to receive his Majesty.

“I will make a speech,” said the Mayor, “and our orchestra can serenade his Majesty.”

“The serenade is a good idea,” said Hans Pumpernickel, innocently. “Shall I inform Herr Teutonstring and his fellow-players that that is your opinion?”

“As a rule, I avoid having opinions,” said the Mayor, “but in this instance I think it is safe to hazard one. You may inform the gentlemen.”

“And the speech?” suggested Hans.

“We’ll see about that,” said the Mayor. “If I can get a good one, I shall deliver it.”

“Very well,” said Hans. “I’ll try to think of something for you to say. Meanwhile I’ll see Von Kärlingtongs.”

Hans did as he said, and, despite their wisdom, the three musicians were as much in a flutter as the rest of the city. To play before the King was an unexpected honor, although Heinrich Flatz affected to treat it as quite an ordinary thing.

“He is a very fair judge of music,” said Flatz, patronizingly, “for a King. I think that, after all, we’d better do our best.”

“Yes,” said Von Kärlingtongs, “you are right, as usual, though I will say right here that, in doing my best, I am actuated as much by my loyalty to my art as by any other motive. I always do my best.”

“And I also,” put in Teutonstring. “Now the question that arises is what is our best?”

“That is indeed the question,” said Herr Flatz. “I, having already had the honor to play before his Majesty, am perhaps better fitted than either of you to say what he likes. When I was so distinguished I played Djorski’s Symphony in B Minor. Therefore I contend that that is what we should play. His Majesty remarked that he had never heard anything like it before. He would doubtless like to hear it again. Therefore I say that is the thing for us to play.”

“Ordinarily,” said Teutonstring, “I can agree with Herr Flatz, but this time I cannot. I am at my best in Darmstadter’s Oratorio. There can be no question about it that the bass-viol is at its highest, most ennobling point in that composition, which is why I say let us have the Oratorio. The King, having heard the Symphony in B Minor, would naturally rather hear something else. The Symphony, no doubt, would awaken pleasant memories, but the Oratorio would give him something new to remember in the future.”

“There is much in what you say, Herr Teutonstring,” put in Von Kärlingtongs. “There is also much in what my dear friend Flatz says; but it seems to me that there is more in what I have to say than in the combined suggestions of both of you. The Symphony in B Minor is excellent, the Oratorio is quite as excellent, but neither of them comes up to Dboriak’s Moonlight Sonata, which, when I play it, makes me feel as though the whole world lay at my feet—as if I were the King of all creation. Now I am a man; the King is a man; we are both men. It is but natural to suppose that if this Sonata makes me, a man, feel like the King of all creation, it will also make that other man, the King, feel the same way. What is our object in playing before the King? To please him. How can we best please him? Simply by making him feel that he is the King of all creation. Perfectly simple, my dear Flatz. Plain as a pikestaff, Teutonstring. Therefore let us play Dboriak’s Moonlight Sonata.”

It was thus that the three musicians, who had always hitherto agreed, came to have the first difference of their lives, and what made it seem worse than all was that this difference occurred at a time which seemed to them in their secret hearts to be the greatest event of their lives. Perhaps it was the very importance of this event that made each of them firm in his belief that he was right and the others wrong. Neither would yield to the others, and an hour before the arrival of the royal train found Flatz determined to play the Symphony, Teutonstring determined to play the Oratorio, and Von Kärlingtongs equally immovable in his determination to play the Moonlight Sonata, and nothing else. They labored with one another in vain. Doctor Teutonstring tried to win over Herr Flatz, saying that if together they should play the Oratorio they could let Von Kärlingtongs render the Sonata without much harm, since the bass-viol and ’cello together could drown the sounds of the violin. Herr Flatz would agree to a combination of two against one only in case the Symphony were selected, and when the King arrived no change whatsoever had been made in the determination of the musicians. Ruin stared them in the face, but each preferred ruin to a base surrender of what he thought to be for the best.

Of course, as the King alighted from the train the people cheered, and, when the Mayor rose to greet him with the speech he had to make, they cheered again, but these cheers were as nothing to those which greeted the appearance of the musicians. Many nations had kings; all cities had mayors; what city had such an orchestra? No wonder they cheered.

And then the serenade began.

Herr Flatz resined his bow and began the Symphony in B Minor, while Von Kärlingtongs and Teutonstring, equally determined, started in on the opening measures of the Sonata and Oratorio respectively.

“It’s something new they’ve got up for the occasion,” whispered the people, as the three men fiddled away with all their strength.

“A most original composition!” said the King to the Chancellor.

“I never heard such discord in my life,” said a small boy on the outskirts of the crowd.

Still they kept on. The Symphony and the Oratorio were longer than the Sonata, so that Von Kärlingtongs soon found himself outdone by his fellow-players, but, nothing daunted, he played the Sonata over again. And so it went, until, with a final grand burst of notes (I was almost about to say harmony), they stopped.

“Magnificent!” said the King.

“A really classic composition,” murmured the Chancellor.

And the people shrieked with delight.

The musicians, perspiring with excitement, stood overcome with surprise. They had succeeded beyond their wildest hopes, but the King brought them to their senses in a minute by asking:

“What is the composer’s name?”

“What’ll we tell him?” moaned Teutonstring. “It will never do to confess what we have done now.”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” returned Flatz, with a shiver.

“The composer’s name, sir,” replied Von Kärlingtongs, more ready of wit than the others—“the composer’s name is—ah—is—”

“Well?” said the King, impatiently.

“It is Kärlingteutonflatz,” said Von Kärlingtongs.

“Give him a thousand marks,” said the King, “and distribute a thousand more to these gentlemen,” he added.

And then the royal party proceeded on its way.

As for the composer, Kärlingteutonflatz, he was never heard of again; but several other eminent musicians modeled their music after his, and obtained a renown that was not only worldwide, but has lasted until this day.

The three musicians of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, when they had recovered from their surprise and excitement, began to smile, and never stopped until they died—and I am not certain that they stopped then—nor did they ever confide their secret to anyone but Hans Pumpernickel, who in turn confided it to me, so that this is really the first time the public has been let into the secret origin of what was then the music of the future and what is today the music of the present.

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How Fritz
Became a Wizard

It was a lovely summer afternoon at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and Hans Pumpernickel and I, having little else to do, idled along the sylvan path that for five or six miles follows the winding course of the famous little river. Hans was in a very talkative mood that day. He had quite recently been reelected Mayor of the town in which he lived, after a hard campaign of six weeks, during which time he had not been allowed to say anything, for fear of spoiling his chances of reelection.

“And now that it is over, and I am safely in office once more, I am going to make up for lost time,” he said. “Having kept silent for six weeks, I shall now talk three times as much as usual for three. I am fat with suppressed conversation, and I must get rid of it, or I shall burst.”

So, as I have told you, he was very talkative, and on that afternoon he told me enough stories to fill an encyclopedia, most of which, I regret to say, I have forgotten, but some of which, also, I remember perfectly. The one telling how Fritz von Hatzfeldt became a wizard was one of these latter, and it seemed to me quite good enough to tell to you. It came about in this way. When nearing the point where the celebrated Baron Laubenheimer, at the risk of his life, once plunged into the Zugvitz to rescue Johanna Johannisberg from drowning—a heroic act, the story of which I hope someday to tell you—we perceived walking ahead of us a strange-looking old gentleman, clad in a long, flowing robe with a border embroidered with mystic figures. He wore spectacles—or, rather, the rims of spectacles, without glass; for, as I learned afterwards, though his eyes were in good condition, his ideas as to the dignity of his profession compelled him to appear as wise as possible, and he had discovered that nothing imparts to the face of man so much of the appearance of wisdom as spectacles.

“That,” said Hans Pumpernickel, in response to my question, “is our town wizard, Fritz von Hatzfeldt, and I may add that the town has never had a better one. When I was running for Mayor this last time against Pflueger, who, as you may remember, was the opposing candidate, Von Hatzfeldt was consulted by my friends as to my chances; for, as town wizard, it is his duty to prophesy. His answer was wonderfully quick, and absolutely accurate. ‘Who will be elected,’ said he, ‘Pumpernickel or Pflueger?’ ‘Yes,’ said they, ‘that is the question.’ ‘I will consult the stars,’ said Von Hatzfeldt, withdrawing to his observatory. Now, his predecessor, Rosenstein, would have taken a week to return his verdict, but Von Hatzfeldt’s strong point is quickness. He remained with the stars no longer than two hours, and then, emerging from his observatory, he said, ‘I have consulted, and the heavens tell me that the name of our next Mayor will begin with the letter P.’ And it was so. Pumpernickel was elected, and Pflueger was defeated. Was not that an extraordinary, even a wonderful prophecy?”

“Very,” I assented. “That man must be a genius; I should like to meet him.”

“I think it can be arranged,” said Hans. “I will ask him if you may.” And he hurried on to overtake the wizard. In a moment he returned.

“Well,” I said, “does he consent to my meeting him?”

“Yes,” said Hans. “Only, with his customary wisdom, he says that, to meet him, you should be coming towards him from in front. He says that people can only be said to meet when face to face. ‘You do not meet the man who walks behind you, Mr. Mayor,’ he said; ‘but if your friend will take a shortcut through the woods to the old rock two hundred paces on, he can then approach me from before, and then we shall meet.”

“That suits me,” said I, and, making the cut through the woods, I reached the rock, turned back, and soon stood face to face with the wizard. “I am glad to know you,” said I, as Pumpernickel introduced us.

“I was about to make a similar remark myself,” returned Von Hatzfeldt, “but concluded not to, and for this reason: to tell you that would be to tell you something you already knew. If I had not been glad to meet you, I could have turned aside and avoided the meeting. Now, my notion of the duties of a professional wizard is that he should tell people only those things which they do not know, and should avoid wasting his breath in imparting useless information.”

“A very sage observation,” said Pumpernickel.

“And what else did you expect?” queried the wizard, gazing through his unglazed spectacles upon the Mayor. “Mark you, Mr. Mayor, it is the business of wizards to make sage observations. You might as well try to purchase a diamond necklace of a greengrocer as look for unwise remarks from a professional wizard.”

“I’ll test his powers of prophecy now,” said Hans to me, in a whisper.

“Do,” I replied. “I shall be delighted, for I never met a real prophet before.”

“Ah, Herr Wizard,” said Hans, addressing Von Hatzfeldt, “what do you think about the weather?”

“It is very fair—now,” replied the wizard.

“Now, eh?” said Hans. “Then you think it will not always be so?”

“No,” replied the wizard, glancing up into the heavens. “No. To you there is nothing in the skies to foretell a change, but to me there is much. Before the winter is over, Hans Pumpernickel, we shall have snow. I read it in the stars.”

“Stars?” I cried. “By day?”

“And why not?” returned the wizard. “Do you think because you do not see them that therefore the stars are all destroyed?”

To this I had no answer, and before I could recover myself Fritz von Hatzfeldt had passed on.

“Isn’t he a wonder?” said Pumpernickel.

“He is more than a wonder,” I replied. “He is a four-hundred-and-tender”—a joke, by the way, which Hans Pumpernickel did not appreciate.

“Whence do your wizards come?” I asked.

“There is no rule,” Pumpernickel answered. “The wisest person in town is generally selected, though, as for Fritz, he studied wizardry under Rosenstein. It was curious the way it happened. Fritz was the son of a farmer, who sent him to school when he was very young, and at the age of five he could read so well that he couldn’t be got to leave his books and help gather in the crops. At seven his father, in a fit of anger at what he termed the boy’s laziness, turned him out of doors, and Fritz came to Schnitzelhammerstein to seek his fortune. The first position he held was as boy in a butcher-shop, but he had to give that up, because, having gone for weeks without sufficient food, his appetite was a serious menace to the butcher’s stock, which the butcher did not discover until Fritz had eaten one whole side of beef. Then he became candy-puller for a molasses-candy-maker, who employed him without counting upon his sweet tooth. This he was compelled to give up after having consumed two weeks’ salary’s worth of candy in two days. It was this second rebuff that brought him to Rosenstein’s notice. While standing in his laboratory one morning the wizard heard a piping little voice cry out, ‘Excuse me, sir, but don’t you want an assistant?’

“‘An assistant what?’ asked Rosenstein.

“‘An assistant whatever you are,’ returned the owner of the little voice, who was none other than Fritz.

“The answer pleased Rosenstein. He recognized wisdom in it; for that it was wise no one will deny.

“‘Don’t you know what I am?’ he asked.

“‘Yes,’ said Fritz. ‘You are a very nice old gentleman.’

“Rosenstein laughed. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But I am also the town wizard.’

“‘Then will I be the assistant town wizard,’ said Fritz. ‘What do wizards do—whiz?’

“‘I’ll take you in for a week and let you see,’ said Rosenstein, and little Fritz was employed to do errands. But alas for him! The wizard, though he liked him much, could not afford to keep him. He had not counted upon Fritz’s appetite any more than the butcher had, and again was the boy sent forth. This time, however, he was sent forth in a kindly way. ‘You are a good boy, Fritz, and I like you, and I think you would make a good wizard someday, for you have a wise way about you for your years, but I am too poor to feed you. I will say to you, however, that if you ever make your fortune in this world, then will I be glad to receive you back again and point out to you the path you should pursue if you would someday succeed me in my office. Make your fortune first, my boy, then come to me.’

“‘Can’t I stay if I lose my appetite?” asked Fritz, mournfully.

“‘Ah, but you mustn’t do that,’ the wizard answered. ‘An appetite is a splendid thing—a fortune in itself—but you must also have another fortune in itself to maintain it. Go, my boy, and bless you!’

“Poor Fritz! This last failure discouraged him woefully. He had no money, no home, nobody to go to. His condition was a dreadful one; but the Fates had a happy life in store for him. He wandered out along this very path up to the big rock, and sat down to meditate, and as he meditated he observed, as the tide of the river went down, it uncovered the entrance to what appeared to be a huge cavern. ‘Humph!’ said Fritz. ‘Looks like a cave. Maybe I can use that for a place to live in. There may be one or two dry spots inside where I could sleep, and I could always come out at low tide if I wanted to. There’s house rent saved, anyhow.’

“Speaking thus, he climbed down into the cavern, and, as he had hoped, found plenty of dry places, and from that time on it became his home. He occasionally made a few marks by doing chores for people around about Schnitzelhammerstein, and with them he supplied himself with food and furniture. The springtime came, and with it a freshet which completely covered up the entrance to the cavern night and day, high tide or low, and Fritz found himself shut up in his strange home for two whole dreary months. Escape was impossible. The sole sustenance he had was an occasional fish he caught in some of the pools.

“It was not until he had been in this cavernous prison for five weeks that he noticed a most unique thing about it. Night and day it was always brilliantly lighted! On the Monday night of the fifth week this singular fact flashed upon the boy’s mind. How was it? Whence could the light come? It was not sunlight, because that would not shine by night. What, then, was the secret of the light in the cave? The little fellow mused oft and long thereon, and finally he reached a conclusion, which, like all his conclusions, was a wise one.

“‘This is worth investigating. I will investigate,’ he cried. ‘Meditation is good in its way, but if a thing is past mental comprehension, then investigation of an active sort is in order. In the first place, the light does not come from above; it streams in through that chink in the rock off to the left. I will slide through that chink and see what is to be seen.’

“In an instant he had done so, and—there lay his fortune. Lying upon the soft earth floor of the adjoining cave was a diamond, dazzling in its luster, and large as a hen’s egg. So brilliant was it that all about it was lighted up as though by electricity. In a second Fritz pounced upon it and held it aloft. It nearly blinded him, but he held on to it like grim death. It was his, and only his. His fortune was made.

“Three weeks later the waters subsided, and Fritz went forth into the world with his diamond.”

“But,” said I, “a diamond like that would be very hard to sell, and people might not understand how it had come into the possession of a small boy who had always been poor.”

“True,” said Pumpernickel, “and Fritz thought of that. ‘Too sudden riches fly suddenly away,’ he observed. ‘I will proceed slowly.’ He didn’t show that diamond to anyone until he had made his fortune.”

“Then how—how did he make his fortune?” I asked.

“He sold its light,” said Hans. “It does not sound probable, but it is true. In those days we had no gas or electricity to light our public squares or ballrooms or libraries, and Fritz, noting this, bought a small lantern with ground-glass sides, so that the diamond could shed its light without itself being seen, and, putting his diamond into it, rented it out for public meetings, for ballroom illumination—in fact, to any who stood in need of a strong, powerful light. Scientists from all Germany flocked in to see it, and besought him to divulge the secret of the light, but he would not until he had accumulated a fortune, and then he let the world into his confidence. Meanwhile he had gone back to Rosenstein, and had learned the art of being a wizard, and when Rosenstein died he was unanimously called to fill the vacancy.”

“And what became of the diamond?”

“That,” said Hans, “is a mystery. Some say that Von Hatzfeldt has it yet, but burglars who have searched his house high and low a thousand times say that he hasn’t it.”

“And he—what does he say?”

“He declines to speak of it,” said Hans, simply.

“Well,” said I, “that is a very remarkable tale.”

“Yes,” said Hans, “but then Fritz von Hatzfeldt is a very remarkable wizard, for how a man can be as wise as he and know so little passes all comprehension.”

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Rise and Fall
of the Poet Gregory

One night after dining with Hans Pumpernickel at his house in Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, I recalled to his mind that he had promised sometime to introduce me to the three sages of the town—the only persons residing there who at all approached Fritz von Hatzfeldt, the wizard, in wisdom.

“True,” said he, “I did promise that, and if you like I will take you to them this evening. They are a wonderful trio, and between you and me, I really think they know more in a day than Von Hatzfeldt does in a year. The maxims of Otto the Shoemaker alone contain wisdom enough to set ten wizards up in business. Did you ever hear any of Otto the Shoemaker’s maxims?”

“No,” said I. “I never even heard of Otto the Shoemaker. Does he write maxims?”

“Not exactly,” replied Hans, filling his pipe and putting on his hat. “He cannot write, but he can speak. He says maxims.”

“How interesting!” I observed, following Hans’s example and putting on my hat and filling my pipe also. “I should like to hear some of them.”

“You shall,” replied Hans. “Here is one of them: ‘One never misses one’s shoes until he has to do without them.’ That, you see, is undeniable, and is full of wisdom. Then there was this one addressed to his son: ‘Rise in the world, but be careful how. The man who goes up in a balloon cannot stay up after the gas gives out. Therefore, my son, rise not up at random, even as the balloonist does, but rather move up slowly but surely, like him who builds a tower of rock beneath him, and is thus able to stay up as long as he pleases.’”

“Wonderful,” said I. “And you say that this philosopher, this deep thinker, this Maximilian, is content to remain a shoemaker?”

“Yes,” Hans answered, “he is, for, as he himself once said, ‘The throne itself rests upon society merely, but upon what does society stand? Boots and shoes! I make boots and shoes, wherefore I am the cornerstone of the empire.’”

“I must meet this Otto the Shoemaker,” was my response, and to that end Hans Pumpernickel and I went out to the little back street where Otto the Shoemaker, Eisenberg the Keysmith, and Jurgurson the Innkeeper, the three sages of the town, dwelt peacefully and happily together in neighborly intercourse. We found them having a quiet little gossip after tea. Eisenberg was leaning out of his shop window, his long, white clay pipe unfilled in his hand, lovingly discoursing to Otto the Shoemaker, who, clad in his leather apron, hung upon his every word as though each were a pearl of thought, and to Jurgurson the Innkeeper, who sat opposite him with a look upon his face which indicated how much he marveled at the wisdom which bubbled out of Eisenberg’s lips like water from a geyser.

“It is as I tell you,” Eisenberg was saying; “thought is the key to every mystery; wherefore I, being the maker of keys of all sorts, necessarily manufacture thoughts. It is a part of my business. Why, therefore, should the world express surprise at my being a thinker?”

“Wherefore, indeed?” replied Jurgurson; “or me, too? As the keeper of the inn is it not for me to dispense entertainment for man and beast? Is not wisdom the entertainment of many men, and do not many men come here? Why should I, too, then, not have wisdom on draft just as likewise I have gingerale and lemonade?”

“You are both right,” put in Otto the Shoemaker. “And as for me, what? This: the labor of the shoemaker is confining. I am kept at my bench all day. I must have exercise or I die; with my body busy at my trade, what can I exercise else? My wits—yah! That is, then, the cause of no surprise that I, too, am sagacious.”

“We have never said anything more wise,” said Eisenberg, proudly, and the others agreed with him.

At this point Hans presented me to the sages.

“Gentlemen,” he said, after he had given to each an appropriate greeting, “I have brought with me one who wishes to know you. He is an American and a poet.”

“Ach!” cried Eisenberg. “An American—that is good. A poet? Well we shall see. That is not always so good. Do you write, sir?”

“Occasionally,” I answered.

“Good,” said Otto. “That is better than often.”

“True,” assented Jurgurson, “though not so good as hardly ever.”

I laughed. “You do not seem to think much of poets,” said I.

“We do not say that,” said Otto. “We do not know you as a poet, and so we do not pass judgment. When one says because one or two, or even two thousand, shoemakers are bad, all shoemakers are bad, one speaks foolishness. So with the poets. Because Heinrich von Scribbhausen writes bad stuff, you do not therefore write bad stuff. A poet should be judged, not by his shoes, but by his poems. I, a shoemaker, must not be judged by my poems, but by my shoes, which points a moral, and that moral is, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander. The gander may be a person who makes fine clothes. The goose should not be judged by his clothes, but the gander should; therefore, never judge a man for what he ain’t.”

“Bravo!” cried Jurgurson. “I could not have spoken more wisely myself.”

“Nor I,” said Eisenberg. “Yet I could add somewhat. You do not print your poems?”

“Of course,” I replied, “and why not?”

“It is a great risk,” sighed Eisenberg. “Particularly for poets, for, as Otto has well said, the world cannot judge a man for what he is not; so if a shoemaker print a bad book of poems, there is no risk. The poems will be judged as the work of a shoemaker, and, though bad, may still be good for a shoemaker to have written; but for a poet to print bad poems, that is as risky as for a shoemaker to make bad shoes.”

At this point my guide, Hans Pumpernickel, feeling perhaps that the conversation was not exactly pleasant for me, in spite of the undoubted wisdom of the sages’ remarks, handed his tobacco-pouch to the keysmith, having observed that Eisenberg’s pipe was empty.

“Thank you, no,” said Eisenberg, handing it back, “I do not smoke tobacco. It is tobacco which makes of smoking an injurious pastime. To me the pleasure of smoking is the caressing of a pipe, the holding of it in one’s hands, the occasional putting of it into one’s mouth and puffing. Therefore I keep my pipe to caress, to hold, to put into my mouth, and to puff upon. The tobacco, which does not agree with me, I never use.”

Otto and Jurgurson beamed proudly upon their fellow-sage. It was evident that in him they recognized the center of all wisdom.

“But as for poets,” said Eisenberg, turning to me, “I should like to tell you about Gregory—the poet Gregory. Did you ever hear of him?”

“No,” said I.

“Ah! See then!” cried Eisenberg. “It proves my point. He is unknown already, and all for why? Because his poems were printed, for until they were printed they were not unknown.”

“Magnificently put!” cried the shoemaker.

“Logical as logic itself!” said the innkeeper.

“And what is the story of Gregory?” I asked, interested hugely and almost as enthusiastic over the whimsical wisdom of the keysmith as his fellow-wiseacres.

“Gregory,” said Eisenberg, “was the first name. His last name I shall not give you for two reasons. The first reason is that, if I gave it to you, I should betray a confidence reposed in me by his family. The second reason is that I have forgotten it. That is the sad part of it all. When a name begins to be forgotten by one, or even two persons, its trip to oblivion is rapid. Even I, who used to worship him as a poet, have forgotten the name he made for himself.”

The keysmith sighed sorrowfully as he spoke, and I began to believe with him, though without knowing the reason therefor, that Gregory’s cause was indeed a lost one. There was silence for a full minute, during which Eisenberg puffed thoughtfully upon his empty pipe, blowing imaginary clouds of smoke out into the air, and then he spoke.

“Gregory was not of high birth, but early in life his parents saw that he was not destined to follow successfully the career of a peasant. He was of an inquiring mind. He was not content to know that grass was green and water wet. He wished to know why grass was green and water wet, and when, in response to questions of this nature, his father, a practical person, would send him out to the stables to milk the cows, or to the grindstone to sharpen the scythe, Gregory’s soul revolted within him. ‘You will never make a peasant,’ said his father. ‘Not a peasant of the fields,’ the boy replied, ‘but a peasant of learning, perhaps. I would not mind milking the cow of knowledge, and filling the pail of my mind with lactated information; nor should I mind sharpening my wits upon the grindstone of thought.’ And at these words his father would stare at him and say that one who had such command of mysterious language did not need Greek to conceal his thoughts from his hearers; and he would add an invitation, which Gregory perforce always accepted, to retire to the fagot-room with him and receive corporal punishment at his hands. So it went for several years, during which Gregory read everything that came within reach, until finally one morning he said to his father: ‘Why do you persist in making a peasant of me when I wish to be a poet? What is the odds to you? Nay, more, father, do not the words peasant and poet both begin with a P and end with a T? What difference can it make if the ends be the same?’—which so enraged his father that Gregory was disowned by him, and another boy adopted in his place.

“Then Gregory came here to Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, and at a time when Rudolf von Pepperpotz, the solemn Baron of Humpfelhimmel, happened to stand in need of a secretary and librarian. How it came about that Gregory was so unfortunate as to obtain the position is neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that he became the secretary and librarian of the Baron, and from that time on he was happy. He lived among books, and while at times he found his duties arduous, he was nevertheless content, for he was a philosopher.”

“I’d rather be content than eat,” said the innkeeper.

“Indeed, yes,” said Otto, “for entertainment is better than dyspepsia, and poor eating comes more of the one than the other.”

“By careful economy,” continued Eisenberg, “Gregory soon managed to amass a little fortune, and then he felt he might safely venture to write a little himself, and he did so. He wrote poems about the moon, odes to commonplace things, like scissors and dustpans, but he was wise enough not to publish any of his verse. Then he married, and occasionally he would recite his verses to his wife, who said they were magnificent. She in turn repeated them to her friends, and they said, as she had, that they were unsurpassed. Still Gregory would not print them, though it soon got noised about that he was a great poet. And so it went. Finally, finding himself subjected to great temptation to print his writings, he put everything he had written into a casket, and, having a small closet constructed in the walls of his house, he placed the casket in that closet, locked the iron door upon it and threw away the key. Time went on, and people daily, their curiosity excited, talked more and more of Gregory’s poetry; they even sent delegations to him, requesting him to have his rhymes printed, but he was faithful to his resolution, and when he died he was looked upon as a great writer, without having printed a line. Time passed and his reputation grew. Three generations passed by. His children and their children and their children’s children came, lived, and died, and constantly his fame increased, and people said, ‘Ah, yes; so and so is a great poet, but the poems of Gregory! You should have heard them. They were sublime.’

“But two years ago there came an unhappy day. Someone laughed at the mention of Gregory’s name and cast doubt upon the tradition that he had written, and his great-grandson, foolishly, I thought, and recklessly, as has since been proved, offered to prove the truth of the tradition by opening the closet which for a century had remained closed, and publishing the writings of his ancestor. I was sent for as keysmith to open the door, and when it was opened there stood the casket, and in the casket were found the poems.

“‘Let that suffice,’ said I to his great-grandson. ‘You have proved your point.’

“‘I will prove it to the world,’ said he. ‘I will publish the poems.’”

Here Eisenberg sighed.

“He did so,” he resumed mournfully, “and another idol was shattered. The poems were the worst you ever read, and from that time on the name of Gregory the poet began to sink into oblivion, where it now lies. Had his descendants been less weak, his name would still have remained a household word, such is the force of tradition. As it is, the printed volume is the best testimony that the great poet Gregory was nothing but a commonplace rhymester whose name was not worthy of remembrance.

“And that, sir,” concluded Eisenberg, bowing politely to me, “is why I say that a poet who does not publish runs less risk of failing as a poet than he who does publish.”

And I? Well, how could I deny that Eisenberg was right? He had proved his point only too well, and even that night, on my return home, I went to my little portfolio and utterly destroyed the dozen or more poems I had written that day. If you will take my word for it, you will think them greater than you might if you insisted upon reading them.

“What think you?” asked Hans, as we went home? “Are they not wise?”

“Wiser than the Three Men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl,” said I, “for I do not believe that Otto, Eisenberg, or Jurgurson would go to sea at all.”

“True,” was Hans’s comment, “for as Otto well says in one of his maxims, ‘For a sailor with his sealegs on there is nothing like the sea, but for a shoemaker who lives by shoes alone, dry land is by much the solider foundation.’”

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The Loss
of the “Gretchen B.”

A TALE OF A PIRATE GHOST,
FOUND FLOATING IN A WATER BOTTLE.

I

THE DISCOVERY

It was a very pleasant evening in July. Hans Pumpernickel, who had just laid down the duties of Mayor of Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz, after having filled that lofty office for eight years, was walking with me along the riverfront at its busiest point.

“Let us go out on the wharf,” said Hans, as we neared its entrance. “When I was a small boy I used to take pleasure in sitting upon the twine-piece of the wharf and letting my legs dingle over.”

I scratched my head for a moment before I saw exactly what he meant by “twine-piece” and “dingle.”

“You speak English very well, Pumpernickel,” said I; “but what you should have said was ‘string-piece’ and ‘dangle,’ not ‘twine-piece’ and ‘dingle.’”

“But,” he protested, “is not a piece of twine a piece of string?”

“Yes,” I replied; “but—”

“Then why may not a ‘twine-piece’ be a ‘string-piece’? And as for ‘dingle,’ is it not the present tense of the verb ‘to dingle’? Dingle, dangle, dungle—like sing, sang, sung? You would not say ‘letting him sang’—it would be ‘letting him sing’; wherefore, why not say ‘letting my legs dingle over,’ and avoid saying ‘letting my legs dangle over’?”

“Oh, well, have it your own way,” said I; and, having reached the end of the wharf, we sat down there, and shortly found our legs “dingling” over the water in the most approved style.

“It is a hard sort of a seat,” said I, after a moment or two of silence, as we gazed upon the river flowing by.

“True,” said Hans, philosophically, “though it is not made of hard wood. Let us take a boat and have a row.”

I agreed, and we hired a small skiff and paddled idly down the stream. We had not gone far when the bow of our craft bumped up against something which scraped against the side of the boat as we passed.

“What was that?” said Pumpernickel.

“I don’t know,” said I, indifferently. “Nothing, I guess.”

“What nonsense you talk sometimes!” he retorted. “It must have been something. We’ll retreat and see.”

Suiting the action to the words, Hans backed water with his oars, and in the dim light of the moon we soon descried the object of our search—a curious old earthen vessel floating in the river, bobbing up and down very much like a buoy. It looked like a water-bottle of two centuries ago, and, indeed, upon investigation turned out to be such.

“Aha!” cried Hans, triumphantly, as I lifted the bottle into the boat, “it was something, after all. I knew it could not be nothing. Is it empty of contents?”

I turned the vessel bottom side up, and nothing came out of it, but there was a distinct thud within which betrayed the presence of some solid substance.

“It is not empty of contents,” said I, giving it another shake, “but it hasn’t any table to show what those contents are.”

“Oh, we don’t need a table,” said Hans, failing to appreciate the subtle humor of my remark. “Just shake it out.”

With a sigh over my lost joke, I did as I was bidden, and soon, after a vigorous shaking and the removal of a cork which I had not previously noticed, the substance within issued forth through the bottle’s neck.

“Dear me,” said I. “It appears to be manuscript.”

“Let me see,” said Hans. “Ah,” he observed, “it is writing. Why did you say it was manuscript?”

“That is writing,” I explained.

“That may be,” said he, “but why waste your tongue on three syllables when two will do?”

I ignored the question and put another.

“Can you read it?” I asked.

“With difficulty,” he said, “by this light. Let us return to my rooms and see if we can decimate it.”

“Decipher, decipher, Hans,” said I.

“As you will,” he retorted, with a sweep of the oars which brought us under the shadow of the wharf.

Tying our boat, we hastened back to Pumpernickel’s rooms, and within a half-hour of our find we were busily engaged in translating the extraordinary narrative of Captain Hammerpestle, commander of the Gretchen B., a ship that, as we learned from the captain’s story, was once of ill repute, later of pleasant memory, and finally the central figure of an ocean mystery never as yet solved, though at least two hundred and fifty years had passed since she was given up for lost.

The story was in substance as follows:

II

THE TALE OF
CAPTAIN HAMMERPESTLE

The end is approaching, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, third owner and captain of the ill-starred Gretchen B., formerly known as the Dutch Avenger, will shortly find a watery grave in sixty-eight fathoms of the Atlantic, ninety miles west of the rock of Gibraltar.

The Gretchen B. is sinking, and the pirate ghost is at last a victor, though I have given him a pretty fight these many days. Had it not been for my own stupidity in employing a foreign crew, all might yet be well, and I am impelled in my last moments, for we are sure to go to the bottom within two hours, to write out this story merely in the hope that it may someday reach my fellow-men, tell them of my horrible fate, and possibly warn them against my errors. If I had stuck to my own countrymen, if I had employed Hans Stickenfurst and good old Diedrich Foutzenhickle and their like for my officers and crew, instead of the idiot Pat Sullivan and his twin, Barney O’Brien, and others of that ilk, I should now be nearing port that I shall never reach, instead of sinking, slowly sinking, into the mysterious depths of the great ocean.

I have locked myself within my cabin so as to be free from interruption, and it is highly probable that, having tightly closed my port and calked up the door-cracks and keyhole, I shall be able to gain an extra hour for the writing of this tale even after the Gretchen B. has disappeared beneath the waves, to be hid forevermore from the eyes of man. When the tale is finished I shall place it within my trusty water-bottle, open the port, thrust it forth into the sea, and trust to Heaven that it may rise to the surface and ultimately make some port where it may be read and published, I devoutly hope, by some house of standing.

And now, as every story should begin at the beginning, let me go back to the time when I first took charge of the Gretchen B. It was five years agone, on the 7th day of May, 1635, that the Gretchen B. was purchased by her present owners, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, appointed her commander. It was with a light heart, a full crew, and sixty barrels of Schnitzelhammerstein claret that I set out from Bingen on the 27th day of May, 1635, for London, where the claret was to be sold to the public as medicinal port—its nutty flavor, its bouquet, and other properties favoring the illusion. All went well with us until we reached the sea, when one night, after our second day on the ocean, feeling faint from the effects of the sun, for I had had a hard day of it, I tapped one of the barrels of my cargo for a taste of the claret. Understand, I was not in any sense taking away from the full measure which was due to the purchaser in London, for I intended to replace what I had taken with water—so slight in quantity, too, as not to affect the flavor appreciably. Imagine my consternation to find the liquid turned sour and thin—so thin that under no circumstances could it ever pass muster as medicinal port. I was horrified. Ours had always been an honorable firm. What was to be done? My employers’ reputation was at stake. If that claret had ever been delivered at London as port they were ruined. I determined to run the Gretchen B. to Naples, and there dispose of my cargo as Chianti, to which, with the infusion of a little whale-oil for appearance’ sake, it could be made to bear a remarkable resemblance.

This done, I retired to my cabin to reflect. What could it have been that had wrought such a change, for on leaving Bingen the wine was sweet and good? I locked my door so as to be undisturbed, for I cannot think when there are others about; but hardly had I seated myself at my table when, upon the honor of a sea-captain, a ruffianly person, noiseless as a cat, walked through the massive oaken barrier I had but just fastened to!

“Who—what are you?” I cried, aghast, the spectral quality of the apparition being at once manifest.

“Oh!” he retorted. “It seems to me it’s more to the point for me to ask that question. You are the interloper.”

“It is my cabin,” I said, indignantly.

“Oh, is it?” he sneered. “Since when?”

“Since the seventh day of May,” I replied. “I am the commander of this craft.”

“Pooh!” said he, harshly. “Do you know who I am?”

“I’ve asked you once,” said I, trying hard to appear calm and sarcastic.

“Well, I almost hate to tell you,” he said, throwing off his coat, whereon I was filled with consternation to observe that his belt held four wicked-looking blunderbusses and six cutlasses of razor edge. “You’re not a bad fellow, and your hair will turn white when I tell you; but since you ask, so be it. Your hair be upon your own head. I am the ghost of Wouter von Rotterdaam!”

“You?” I cried, clutching wildly at my locks, not to keep them from turning white, of course, but to steady my nerves, for in the name I recognized that of one of the most successful pirates, and the bloodiest in his way.

“Ay, I!” he replied, impressively.

“But—who—what do you here on board the Gretchen B.?” I cried.

“Gretchen nothing,” he said. “This is the Dutch Avenger, upon which, after her capture, six months ago, I was hanged, and which, my dear Hammerpestle, I shall haunt till she fills her destiny, which is there!”

The word “there” was pronounced in sepulchral tones, and with Von Rotterdaam’s forefinger pointed downward. I shivered from top to toe, but quickly recovered.

“If I cannot have the Dutch Avenger, at least none other shall have her,” he added.

“You are mistaken, Mr. von Rotterdaam,” I said, politely. “You have taken the wrong boat, sir. This is not the Dutch Avenger, but the Gretchen B., of Bingen.”

“She has not always been the Gretchen B., of Bingen,” he replied.

“I know that, my dear sir,” I observed, “but her previous name was the Anneke van der Q.”

“Anneke van der bosh!” he ejaculated, with a laugh. “That is what they told you, and you swallowed the bait. They knew precious well your people wouldn’t buy her if they had ever guessed she’d once been the terror of the seas as the Dutch Avenger of everywhere, the ubiquitous ranger of the deep, Captain Wouter von Rotterdaam, better known as the Throat-Cutter of the Caribbees.”

“Is that the truth?” I replied.

“As a pirate, I scorn lies,” he answered. “We don’t need ’em in our business. Get your carpenter to plane off the name on her stern and see!” and even as he spoke he disappeared, fading away through the closed door.

I was nearly prostrated by the revelation, but, hoping for disproof, I rushed up on deck, summoned the carpenter, and ordered the name Gretchen B. planed off the stern. Alas! there beneath the innocent letters lay the horrid proof of the truth of the specter’s story, the words Dutch Avenger, flanked on either side by skull and crossbones.

Again I sought my room, to recover, and to my added distress Von Rotterdaam had returned, an ugly look on his face.

“You’ve changed your course!” he said, savagely.

“I know it,” said I. “My cargo is spoiled for the original market. I am taking it where it is salable.”

He was very wroth.

“I was not aware that you were so clever a man,” said he, after a moment, calming down. “I perceive that my attempt to ruin you interlopers at the outset is to be attended with some difficulty. You have individual resources upon which I had not counted.”

“Ah!” said I. “It was you who turned the claret sour?”

“It was,” he replied—“as a part of my revenge. And, mark you, Captain Hammerpestle, no cargo shall ever reach its destination unspoiled while I have a bit of the old spook left in me. Where are we bound now?”

“To Naples,” said I, incautiously, and I further foolishly unfolded my plan to dispose of the cargo as Chianti.

“See here, captain,” he said, pleadingly, “give up this honest seafaring business and come out as a pirate, won’t you? You’re too clever a chap to be honest. Keep the Dutch Avenger going as a terror, and, by Jingo, sir, I’ll stand by you to the last.”

My answer was the lighting of a sulphur candle in the hope of exorcising him, and, going on deck, I ordered the name Gretchen B. restored, merely to emphasize my determination to have no part in his foul schemes of piracy.

I must now pause in my narrative for a moment, and see how far we have settled in the water. It may be I shall have to write somewhat less in detail so as to finish the tale before I am destroyed by the inrush of the sea.

*    *    *

It is as I feared. The rippling surface of the ocean is already lapping the lower edge of my circular port window, and one or two drops have leaked within. It will not be long, I fear, before the water from below will burst the decks and dash against my door, when, of course, we shall sink the more rapidly, but if the walls of my cabin, and they are unquestionably strong, Von Rotterdaam having had them made bulletproof, of wrought-iron—if these can withstand the pressure of the water for a half-hour after we are submerged, I am quite confident I can finish the story in time to bottle it up and launch it safely through the port.

*    *    *

After many days of difficulty we passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and on the 18th of July were safely anchored in the Bay of Naples, where I sold the claret, which Von Rotterdaam had changed into water, as the latest mineral product of the Schnitzelhammerstein Spa.

But from the hour of my refusal to compromise with my honor and become the successor and partner of Von Rotterdaam in the profession of piracy we had trouble on board.

Letting my cargo alone, he introduced a system of haunting my crew, so that at the end of several years not a German-speaking sailor was anxious to ship with me, except at ruinously high wages. I found some, but not many, and finally I was reduced to the followers of the two men I have already mentioned—Hans Stickenfurst and Diedrich Foutzenhickle—men who had never known fear, and who, when Von Rotterdaam haunted them, merely laughed and blew the vile-smelling smoke from their pipes into his face. But while the pirate ghost was powerless to fill the men with fear, he did arouse a great interest in the stories of his booty which he told. Night after night, lying in my cabin, I could hear him in the forecastle telling them tales of his prowess, and giving forth vague hints as to where vast treasure was hid which might become theirs if only I would come around and become his successor. The night we entered port I overheard a compact made between them, that on the next outward voyage they would first reason with me and persuade me, if possible, to accept his proposition, and, failing in that, to seize the ship, put me in the long-boat, turn me adrift, and place themselves subject to Von Rotterdaam’s orders.

That was a year ago. Since then, until this ill-fated voyage (by-the-way, as I look up the water is clear over the port window, and is beginning to trickle in under the door, so I must again hasten)—until this ill-fated voyage, I was not again on the sea, and having in mind the threats of my crew, which they do not even now know that I overheard, I secured for this voyage the crew of an Irish bark, discharging all my previous men.

“I will at least have men who do not understand Dutch or German,” I thought, “and for this voyage shall be comparatively safe. To insure against a possible turning adrift in the long-boat, I shall likewise sail without it.”

Alas for all my expectations! While neither Sullivan nor O’Brien, as I had supposed, was acquainted with the native tongue of Von Rotterdaam, that talented ghost could speak English with as fine a brogue as ever gilded speech; and, worse than this, Sullivan, the carpenter, was a flyaway fool. Genial, full of good stories, and an excellent carpenter (the deck beneath my feet is bulging upward), he was absolutely without foresight, and it is to him I owe my present plight.

It happened this afternoon. The day had been absolutely calm and still. Not a ripple on the sea, not a breath of wind to stir even the frayed hemp in the rigging, and yet down, down, down we are sinking, for Sullivan has sawed a hole in our bottom big enough to let a man through!

I didn’t suppose he would do it, but he has; and because last night while he and Rafferty, my second mate, were smoking in the forecastle, Von Rotterdaam’s spirit rose up before them, and, arousing their cupidity, led them astray.

“For the love of the shaints!” cried Rafferty, as the ghost appeared, “phwat are you?”

Rotterdaam replied, “A spherit of the poirate Von Rotterdaam; and here where I stand, directly below me, in five fathoms of water, lies a million in treasure.”

“Go on!” cried Rafferty.

“’Tis true,” retorted Von Rotterdaam. “And if at noon tomorrow you will cut away enough of the ship’s bottom to let yourselves through the hole, with a rope tied about you so that you can be hauled back again, it will be yours.”

“Blame good pay for a shwim,” said Sullivan. “A million phwat—pounds or francs, sorr? They’s some difference betune the two.”

“Exactly,” returned Von Rotterdaam. “And they’re pounds sterling, ingots of gold, and priceless jewels.”

“Phwy don’t yees tell the ould man?” asked Rafferty, referring to me.

“Because,” replied Von Rotterdaam, “he would keep it all for himself. You gentlemen, I am sure, will divide it justly among all.”

“Thrue for youse,” said Sullivan, with a laugh. “And phwere do you come in?”

“I have no further use for dross,” replied Von Rotterdaam; and I judge that at that moment he faded from their sight, for almost immediately he appeared in my cabin. I was tired and irritated, so I said nothing, pretending to be asleep, never for an instant believing that Sullivan would do so foolish a thing.

“He doesn’t ever think of consequences; but he’s not such an ass as to cut a hole a yard square in the bottom of this ship,” I said to myself; and then, worn out, I really slept. How it happened I do not know; possibly that infernal ghost in some manner drugged me; but it was not until five minutes after midday, just three hours ago, that I awoke, and my heart stood still as I heard the action of a saw deep down in the hold.

“Heavens!” I cried, starting up. “The idiot’s at it!”

A deep, baleful laugh greeted the remark. It was from Von Rotterdaam.

“He is! And I am revenged!” he said, in tones which seemed to come from the center of the earth, and then he vanished—I hope, forever.

I rushed madly out and called for Sullivan, but the only answer was the grating of the saw’s teeth. (Dear me! how dark it is getting! I must really not linger with details.) My only answer was the grating of the saw’s teeth upon the bottom of my devoted vessel. Shrieking, I clambered down into the hold, but too late. Just as I got there the yard square of planking was burst in by the waters, and the vessel was doomed.

“Well, captain,” I said to myself, a great calm coming over my soul, “it’s all up with you; now think of others. Those at home, not hearing from you, will be worried. Go to your cabin, and, like a dutiful man, make your report.”

This I have done, and this narrative is my report. I hope it will reach its destination in safety, and that the world may yet learn that in the hour of peril, which has but one conclusion, I have been faithful and calm.

It is now the 16th day of June, 1640. I shall never see the 17th, and I am resigned to my fate. And now for the bottle … now for the cork…. Blithering cyclones! the door is cracking open … and now—one—two—three—to open the port … wait. I must put in one final P.S. In case this story ever reaches the land, will the finder kindly be careful in correcting the proof and see that my name is spelled correctly? There is just a moment in which to write it plainly—RUDOLF—with an F, mark you, not a PH, and HAMMERPESTLE with two M’s. And so—the port …

•    •    •

There the story ends, and here it is for the world to see. What followed Captain Hammerpestle’s last word we can only surmise. Pumpernickel and I have been faithful to the trust unwittingly committed to our care by one who has been dead for a trifle over two hundred and sixty years. We have only to add that those who do not believe that the story is true can see the water-bottle at the home of Herr Pumpernickel at Schnitzelhammerstein-on-the-Zugvitz at any time; but as for the manuscript and the ghost of the pirate Von Rotterdaam, we do not know where they are. The latter we have ourselves never seen, and the former was, as usual, mislaid by the talented young person who undertook to make a typewritten copy of it for us a few days after our discovery.

—

EDITING NOTES

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