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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6995-8.txt b/6995-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d7f6e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/6995-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4371 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ghosts I have Met and Some Others +by John Kendrick Bangs +(#8 in our series by John Kendrick Bangs) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Ghosts I have Met and Some Others + +Author: John Kendrick Bangs + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6995] +[This file was first posted on February 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, GHOSTS I HAVE MET AND SOME OTHERS *** + + + + +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + +[Illustration: 'Such grotesque attitudes as his figure assumed I +never saw.'] + + + +Ghost I Have Met And Some Others + +By John Kendrick Bangs + + +With Illustrations by + +Newell, Frost, and Richards + + + +TO +CHOICE SPIRITS +EVERYWHERE + + + +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 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +"SUCH GROTESQUE ATTITUDES AS HIS FIGURE ASSUMED I NEVER SAW" + +"I TURNED ABOUT, AND THERE, FEARFUL TO SEE, SAT THIS THING GRINNING +AT ME" + +"THE FRIENDLY SPECTRE STOOD BY ME" + +"HE FLED MADLY THROUGH THE WAINSCOTING OF THE ROOM" + +"THEN HE SET ABOUT TELLING ME OF THE BEAUTIFUL GOLD AND SILVER WARE +THEY USE IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS" + +"THERE WAS NO ONE THERE" + +"I DRAINED A GLASS OF COOKING-SHERRY TO THE DREGS" + +"IT HAD TURNED WHITE" + +"IT IS NOT OFTEN THAT ONE'S LITERARY CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST" + +"'SIX IMPTY CHAIRS, SORR'" + +"'L--LUL--LET ME OUT!' HE GASPED". + +"'I SHALL KEEP SHOVING YOU FOR EXACTLY ONE YEAR'" + +"I WAS FORCIBLY UNCLAD" + +"HE WAS AMPLY PROTECTED" + +"PINNED HIM TO THE WALL LIKE A BUTTERFLY ON A CORK" + +"FACE TO FACE" + +"HE RATTLED ON FOR HALF AN HOUR" + +"THE DEMON VANISHED" + +"'DOESN'T DARE LOOK ME IN THE EYE!'" + +"'LOOK AT YOUR SO-CALLED STORY AND SEE'" + +"IT WAS TO BE THE EFFORT OF HIS LIFE" + +"WHEN HE ROSE UP IN THE MORNING HE WOULD FIND EVERY SINGLE HAIR ON +HIS HEAD STANDING ERECT" + +"'WEARS HIS QUEUE POMPADOUR, I SEE'" + + + + +GHOSTS I HAVE MET, AND SOME OTHERS + + + + +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 sea-weed 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 none the less 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 arm-chair. + +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 arm-chair in the spring of 1895, was about as +horrible a spectre 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 some day +prove very useful in removing insects from the rose-bushes. 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 inch-worm. 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 spectre a cigar, which it accepted, and demanded a +light. I gave it, nonchalantly lighting the match upon the goose +-fleshing of my wrist. + +[Illustration: I TURNED ABOUT, AND THERE, FEARFUL TO SEE, SAT THIS +THING GRINNING AT ME.] + +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 clothes-line in the yard, and so on, leaving +my head in the ice-box; 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 +bedclothing. 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 bath-robe--a fuzzy woollen 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 libellers. +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 spectre 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. + +[Illustration: 'THE FRIENDLY SPECTRE STOOD BY ME'] + +"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 +make-up, 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 spectre'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 tomtom, 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 spectres. + +[Illustration: "HE FLED MADLY THROUGH THE WAINSCOTING OF THE ROOM"] + +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 coffee-pot, 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 spectre 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. + +[Illustration: "THEN HE SAT ABOUT TELLING ME OF THE BEAUTIFUL GOLD +AND SILVER WARE THEY USE IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS."] + +_Next morning every bit of that silver-ware 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 some day to +tell for your instruction and my own aggrandizement. + + + + +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 centre 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 house-tops 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 home-comer 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 on-coming 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 Christmas-time quota of woollen 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 spectre-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 push-button 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 re-enter 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. + +[Illustration: "THERE WAS NO ONE THERE"] + +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 spectres 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. + +[Illustration: "I DRAINED A GLASS OF COOKING SHERRY TO THE DREGS"] + +"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 spectre 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. + +[Illustration: "IT HAD TURNED WHITE"] + +"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 any one 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 any one 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. + + + + +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 club-house 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 corse 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. + +[Illustration: "IT IS NOT OFTEN THAT ONE'S LITERARY CHICKENS COME +HOME TO ROOST"] + +The episode with which this narrative has to deal is interesting in +some ways, though I doubt not some readers will prove sceptical 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 awaa 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 awaa, 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. + +[Illustration: "'SIX IMPTY CHAIRS, SORR'"] + +"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 horse-hair 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. + + + + +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 +jelly-fish 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?" + +[Illustration: "'L LUL LET ME OUT!' HE GASPED "] + +"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 coat-tails 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 jelly +-fish. 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!"_ + +[Illustration: "I SHALL KEEP SHOVING YOU FOR EXACTLY ONE YEAR"] + +"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 spectre, 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 offence 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 low +-born 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 gayly; 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 suit-case. "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 cab-driver. 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 any one'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 low-born 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 grave-diggers +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 +wash-stand, and as the shattered glass fell with a loud noise to the +floor the door to my state-room 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 black-guarding 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 strait-jacket?" + +"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 strait-jacket 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. + +[Illustration: "I WAS FORCIBLY UNCLAD"] + +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 spectre. + +"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 travelled 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 spectres 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 +spectre 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 equalled. +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. + +III--THE SPIRIT TRIES TO MAKE REPARATION + +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." + +[Illustration: "HE WAS AMPLY PROTECTED"] + +"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 type-writer +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 type-writing 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 wall-paper. + + + + +IV--THE FAILURE + + +The destruction of the wall-paper, 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 despatched 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 inkspots on the wall. "Novel design in decoration, +that. You ought to get employment in some wall-paper 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 spectre 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 +spectre 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 +spectre 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 sail-boat 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 +fire-proof 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. + +[Illustration: "PINNED HIM TO THE WALL LIKE A BUTTERFLY ON A CORK"] + +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. + + + + +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 search-light +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 wellnigh 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 school-boy 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 up-stairs to my room. + +[Illustration: "FACE TO FACE"] + +_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 work-table 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 fulfil 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 +-door bell 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 to-day, +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 to-day. 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 fulfil a contract into which I have +entered, and which should have been filled this morning. I was due +to-day 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 clew 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 to-day 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 to +-night 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?" + +[Illustration: "HE RATTLED ON FOR HALF AN HOUR"] + +"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 to-night. 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 re-entered 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. + +[Illustration: "THE DEMON VANISHED"] + +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 +to-morrow 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 to-morrow, 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 fibre 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!" + +[Illustration: "DOESN'T DARE TO LOOK ME IN THE EYE"] + +"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 to-night. +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 mail-box 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. + +[Illustration: "'LOOK AT YOUR SO CALLED STORY AND SEE'"] + + + + +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. 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." + +[Illustration: "IT WAS TO BE THE EFFORT OF HIS LIFE"] + +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 flunny, +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, flunny," returned Chung, with a shiver. "Me no likee. Me +flightened." + +"Oh, come!" said Dawson, with an affected lightness. "What are you +afraid of?" + +"Slumting," said Chung. "Do' know what. Go to bled; no sleepee; +pigtail no stay down; heart go thump allee night." + +"By Jove !" thought Dawson; "he's got it too!" + +"Evlyting flunny 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: + +[Illustration: "WHEN HE ROSE UP IN THE MORNING HE WOULD FIND EVERY +SINGLE HAIR ON HIS HEAD STANDING ERECT"] + +"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 head-dress. + +[Illustration: "'WEARS HIS QUEUE POMPADOUR, I SEE'"] + +"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. + + + + +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 +centre, 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. To-day 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 offence, 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 to-day 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 +to-morrow 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 d--ned 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 to-day--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 head +-quarters 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 to-day. 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 Car-lisle. 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-defence. + +"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 fulness 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 some one 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 drag-net if necessary +to find the possible other boy who so resembled me that his +outrageous acts were put upon my shoulders; but people had be-gun 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 tenter-hooks 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 life-work. I am +fortunately possessed of means enough to live on, so that I can +devote all my time to unravelling 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 down-town, 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 clew 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 +none the less 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 to-day. + +"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 court-room +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 to-day was the hour appointed for the execution. I was to have +gone to Richmond to-day 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!" + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, GHOSTS I HAVE MET AND SOME OTHERS *** + +This file should be named 6995-8.txt or 6995-8.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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