{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1993/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1993","id":"gutenberg_1993","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1993","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Contemporary Reviews","Ghost stories, English","Short stories"],"text":"Ver.04.29.93*END*\n\n\n\n\nThis etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\nfrom the 1891 Leadenhall Press edition.\n\n\n\n\n\nTOLD AFTER SUPPER\n\nby Jerome K. Jerome\n\n\n\n\nContents:\n\nIntroductory\nHow the Stories came to be told\nTeddy Biffles' Story--Johnson and Emily; or, the Faithful Ghost\nInterlude--The Doctor's Story\nMr. Coombe's Story--The Haunted Mill; or, the Ruined Home\nInterlude\nMy Uncle's Story--The Ghost of the Blue Chamber\nA Personal Explanation\nMy Own Story\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY\n\n\n\nIt was Christmas Eve.\n\nI begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable\nway to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox,\nrespectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox,\nrespectable thing; and the habit clings to me.\n\nOf course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary\nto mention the date at all.  The experienced reader knows it was\nChristmas Eve, without my telling him.  It always is Christmas Eve,\nin a ghost story,\n\nChristmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night.  On Christmas Eve\nthey hold their annual fete.  On Christmas Eve everybody in\nGhostland who IS anybody--or rather, speaking of ghosts, one should\nsay, I suppose, every nobody who IS any nobody--comes out to show\nhimself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and\ndisplay their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, to\ncriticise one another's style, and sneer at one another's\ncomplexion.\n\n\"Christmas Eve parade,\" as I expect they themselves term it, is a\nfunction, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward to\nthroughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as the\nmurdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls who\ncame over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their relatives, and\ndied raving mad.\n\nHollow moans and fiendish grins are, one may be sure, energetically\npractised up.  Blood-curdling shrieks and marrow-freezing gestures\nare probably rehearsed for weeks beforehand.  Rusty chains and gory\ndaggers are over-hauled, and put into good working order; and\nsheets and shrouds, laid carefully by from the previous year's\nshow, are taken down and shaken out, and mended, and aired.\n\nOh, it is a stirring night in Ghostland, the night of December the\ntwenty-fourth!\n\nGhosts never come out on Christmas night itself, you may have\nnoticed.  Christmas Eve, we suspect, has been too much for them;\nthey are not used to excitement.  For about a week after Christmas\nEve, the gentlemen ghosts, no doubt, feel as if they were all head,\nand go about making solemn resolutions to themselves that they will\nstop in next Christmas Eve; while lady spectres are contradictory\nand snappish, and liable to burst into tears and leave the room\nhurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever.\n\nGhosts with no position to maintain--mere middle-class ghosts--\noccasionally, I believe, do a little haunting on off-nights:  on\nAll-hallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for a\nmere local event--to celebrate, for instance, the anniversary of\nthe hanging of somebody's grandfather, or to prophesy a misfortune.\n\nHe does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British\nghost.  Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he\nis happy.  Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the\nwhole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a\nbankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible\ndisaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner\nthan they could possibly help, and the prior knowledge of which can\nserve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is\ncombining duty with pleasure.  He would never forgive himself if\nanybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a\ncouple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn, or\nbalancing himself on somebody's bed-rail.\n\nThen there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientious\nghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered number weighing heavy on\ntheir minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and also\nthe fussy ghost, who is indignant at having been buried in the\ndust-bin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish a\nsingle night's quiet until somebody has paid for a first-class\nfuneral for him.\n\nBut these are the exceptions.  As I have said, the average orthodox\nghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve, and is satisfied.\n\nWhy on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never could\nmyself understand.  It is invariably one of the most dismal of\nnights to be out in--cold, muddy, and wet.  And besides, at\nChristmas time, everybody has quite enough to put up with in the\nway of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghosts\nof any dead ones mooning about the place, I am sure.\n\nThere must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas--something\nabout the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like\nthe dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.\n\nAnd not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve,\nbut live people always sit and talk about them on Christmas Eve.\nWhenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on\nChristmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories.\nNothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell\nauthentic anecdotes about spectres.  It is a genial, festive\nseason, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and\nmurders, and blood.\n\nThere is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences;\nbut this of course is not our fault but the fault of ghosts, who never\nwill try any new performances, but always will keep steadily to\nold, safe business.  The consequence is that, when you have been at\none Christmas Eve party, and heard six people relate their\nadventures with spirits, you do not require to hear any more ghost\nstories.  To listen to any further ghost stories after that would\nbe like sitting out two farcical comedies, or taking in two comic\njournals; the repetition would become wearisome.\n\nThere is always the young man who was, one year, spending the\nChristmas at a country house, and, on Christmas Eve, they put him\nto sleep in the west wing.  Then in the middle of the night, the\nroom door quietly opens and somebody--generally a lady in her\nnight-dress--walks slowly in, and comes and sits on the bed.  The\nyoung man thinks it must be one of the visitors, or some relative\nof the family, though he does not remember having previously seen\nher, who, unable to go to sleep, and feeling lonesome, all by\nherself, has come into his room for a chat.  He has no idea it is a\nghost:  he is so unsuspicious.  She does not speak, however; and,\nwhen he looks again, she is gone!\n\nThe young man relates the circumstance at the breakfast-table next\nmorning, and asks each of the ladies present if it were she who was\nhis visitor.  But they all assure him that it was not, and the\nhost, who has grown deadly pale, begs him to say no more about the\nmatter, which strikes the young man as a singularly strange\nrequest.\n\nAfter breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and\nexplains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had\nbeen murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else\nthere--it does not really matter which:  you can be a ghost by\nmurdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever\nyou prefer.  The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but,\non the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the\nmurdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.\n\nThen there is the sceptical guest--it is always 'the guest' who\ngets let in for this sort of thing, by-the-bye.  A ghost never\nthinks much of his own family:  it is 'the guest' he likes to haunt\nwho after listening to the host's ghost story, on Christmas Eve,\nlaughs at it, and says that he does not believe there are such\nthings as ghosts at all; and that he will sleep in the haunted\nchamber that very night, if they will let him.\n\nEverybody urges him not to be reckless, but he persists in his\nfoolhardiness, and goes up to the Yellow Chamber (or whatever\ncolour the haunted room may be) with a light heart and a candle,\nand wishes them all good-night, and shuts the door.\n\nNext morning he has got snow-white hair.\n\nHe does not tell anybody what he has seen:  it is too awful.\n\nThere is also the plucky guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a\nghost, and watches it, as it comes into the room and disappears\nthrough the wainscot, after which, as the ghost does not seem to be\ncoming back, and there is nothing, consequently, to be gained by\nstopping awake, he goes to sleep.\n\nHe does not mention having seen the ghost to anybody, for fear of\nfrightening them--some people are so nervous about ghosts,--but\ndetermines to wait for the next night, and see if the apparition\nappears again.\n\nIt does appear again, and, this time, he gets out of bed, dresses\nhimself and does his hair, and follows it; and then discovers a\nsecret passage leading from the bedroom down into the beer-cellar,-\n-a passage which, no doubt, was not unfrequently made use of in the\nbad old days of yore.\n\nAfter him comes the young man who woke up with a strange sensation\nin the middle of the night, and found his rich bachelor uncle\nstanding by his bedside.  The rich uncle smiled a weird sort of\nsmile and vanished.  The young man immediately got up and looked at\nhis watch.  It had stopped at half-past four, he having forgotten\nto wind it.\n\nHe made inquiries the next day, and found that, strangely enough,\nhis rich uncle, whose only nephew he was, had married a widow with\neleven children at exactly a quarter to twelve, only two days ago,\n\nThe young man does not attempt to explain the circumstance.  All he\ndoes is to vouch for the truth of his narrative.\n\nAnd, to mention another case, there is the gentleman who is\nreturning home late at night, from a Freemasons' dinner, and who,\nnoticing a light issuing from a ruined abbey, creeps up, and looks\nthrough the keyhole.  He sees the ghost of a 'grey sister' kissing\nthe ghost of a brown monk, and is so inexpressibly shocked and\nfrightened that he faints on the spot, and is discovered there the\nnext morning, lying in a heap against the door, still speechless,\nand with his faithful latch-key clasped tightly in his hand.\n\nAll these things happen on Christmas Eve, they are all told of on\nChristmas Eve.  For ghost stories to be told on any other evening\nthan the evening of the twenty-fourth of December would be\nimpossible in English society as at present regulated.  Therefore,\nin introducing the sad but authentic ghost stories that follow\nhereafter, I feel that it is unnecessary to inform the student of\nAnglo-Saxon literature that the date on which they were told and on\nwhich the incidents took place was--Christmas Eve.\n\nNevertheless, I do so.\n\n\n\nNOW THE STORIES CAME TO BE TOLD\n\n\n\nIt was Christmas Eve!  Christmas Eve at my Uncle John's; Christmas\nEve (There is too much 'Christmas Eve' about this book.  I can see\nthat myself.  It is beginning to get monotonous even to me.  But I\ndon't see how to avoid it now.) at No. 47 Laburnham Grove, Tooting!\nChristmas Eve in the dimly-lighted (there was a gas-strike on)\nfront parlour, where the flickering fire-light threw strange\nshadows on the highly coloured wall-paper, while without, in the\nwild street, the storm raged pitilessly, and the wind, like some\nunquiet spirit, flew, moaning, across the square, and passed,\nwailing with a troubled cry, round by the milk-shop.\n\nWe had had supper, and were sitting round, talking and smoking.\n\nWe had had a very good supper--a very good supper, indeed.\nUnpleasantness has occurred since, in our family, in connection\nwith this party.  Rumours have been put about in our family,\nconcerning the matter generally, but more particularly concerning\nmy own share in it, and remarks have been passed which have not so\nmuch surprised me, because I know what our family are, but which\nhave pained me very much.  As for my Aunt Maria, I do not know when\nI shall care to see her again.  I should have thought Aunt Maria\nmight have known me better.\n\nBut although injustice--gross injustice, as I shall explain later\non--has been done to myself, that shall not deter me from doing\njustice to others; even to those who have made unfeeling\ninsinuations.  I will do justice to Aunt Maria's hot veal pasties,\nand toasted lobsters, followed by her own special make of\ncheesecakes, warm (there is no sense, to my thinking, in cold\ncheesecakes; you lose half the flavour), and washed down by Uncle\nJohn's own particular old ale, and acknowledge that they were most\ntasty.  I did justice to them then; Aunt Maria herself could not\nbut admit that.\n\nAfter supper, Uncle brewed some whisky-punch.  I did justice to\nthat also; Uncle John himself said so.  He said he was glad to\nnotice that I liked it.\n\nAunt went to bed soon after supper, leaving the local curate, old\nDr. Scrubbles, Mr. Samuel Coombes, our member of the County\nCouncil, Teddy Biffles, and myself to keep Uncle company.  We\nagreed that it was too early to give in for some time yet, so Uncle\nbrewed another bowl of punch; and I think we all did justice to\nthat--at least I know I did.  It is a passion with me, is the\ndesire to do justice.\n\nWe sat up for a long while, and the Doctor brewed some gin-punch\nlater on, for a change, though I could not taste much difference\nmyself.  But it was all good, and we were very happy--everybody was\nso kind.\n\nUncle John told us a very funny story in the course of the evening.\nOh, it WAS a funny story!  I forget what it was about now, but I\nknow it amused me very much at the time; I do not think I ever\nlaughed so much in all my life.  It is strange that I cannot\nrecollect that story too, because he told it us four times.  And it\nwas entirely our own fault that he did not tell it us a fifth.\nAfter that, the Doctor sang a very clever song, in the course of\nwhich he imitated all the different animals in a farmyard.  He did\nmix them a bit.  He brayed for the bantam cock, and crowed for the\npig; but we knew what he meant all right.\n\nI started relating a most interesting anecdote, but was somewhat\nsurprised to observe, as I went on, that nobody was paying the\nslightest attention to me whatever.  I thought this rather rude of\nthem at first, until it dawned upon me that I was talking to myself\nall the time, instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did\nnot know that I was telling them a tale at all, and were probably\npuzzled to understand the meaning of my animated expression and\neloquent gestures.  It was a most curious mistake for any one to\nmake.  I never knew such a thing happen to me before.\n\nLater on, our curate did tricks with cards.  He asked us if we had\never seen a game called the \"Three Card Trick.\"  He said it was an\nartifice by means of which low, unscrupulous men, frequenters of\nrace-meetings and such like haunts, swindled foolish young fellows\nout of their money.  He said it was a very simple trick to do:  it\nall depended on the quickness of the hand.  It was the quickness of\nthe hand deceived the eye.\n\nHe said he would show us the imposture so that we might be warned\nagainst it, and not be taken in by it; and he fetched Uncle's pack\nof cards from the tea-caddy, and, selecting three cards from the\npack, two plain cards and one picture card, sat down on the\nhearthrug, and explained to us what he was going to do.\n\nHe said:  \"Now I shall take these three cards in my hand--so--and\nlet you all see them.  And then I shall quietly lay them down on\nthe rug, with the backs uppermost, and ask you to pick out the\npicture card.  And you'll think you know which one it is.\"  And he\ndid it.\n\nOld Mr. Coombes, who is also one of our churchwardens, said it was\nthe middle card.\n\n\"You fancy you saw it,\" said our curate, smiling.\n\n\"I don't 'fancy' anything at all about it,\" replied Mr. Coombes, \"I\ntell you it's the middle card.  I'll bet you half a dollar it's the\nmiddle card.\"\n\n\"There you are, that's just what I was explaining to you,\" said our\ncurate, turning to the rest of us; \"that's the way these foolish\nyoung fellows that I was speaking of are lured on to lose their\nmoney.  They make sure they know the card, they fancy they saw it.\nThey don't grasp the idea that it is the quickness of the hand that\nhas deceived their eye.\"\n\nHe said he had known young men go off to a boat race, or a cricket\nmatch, with pounds in their pocket, and come home, early in the\nafternoon, stone broke; having lost all their money at this\ndemoralising game.\n\nHe said he should take Mr. Coombes's half-crown, because it would\nteach Mr. Coombes a very useful lesson, and probably be the means\nof saving Mr. Coombes's money in the future; and he should give the\ntwo-and-sixpence to the blanket fund.\n\n\"Don't you worry about that,\" retorted old Mr. Coombes.  \"Don't you\ntake the half-crown OUT of the blanket fund:  that's all.\"\n\nAnd he put his money on the middle card, and turned it up.\n\nSure enough, it really was the queen!\n\nWe were all very much surprised, especially the curate.\n\nHe said that it did sometimes happen that way, though--that a man\ndid sometimes lay on the right card, by accident.\n\nOur curate said it was, however, the most unfortunate thing a man\ncould do for himself, if he only knew it, because, when a man tried\nand won, it gave him a taste for the so-called sport, and it lured\nhim on into risking again and again; until he had to retire from\nthe contest, a broken and ruined man.\n\nThen he did the trick again.  Mr. Coombes said it was the card next\nthe coal-scuttle this time, and wanted to put five shillings on it.\n\nWe laughed at him, and tried to persuade him against it.  He would\nlisten to no advice, however, but insisted on plunging.\n\nOur curate said very well then:  he had warned him, and that was\nall that he could do.  If he (Mr. Coombes) was determined to make a\nfool of himself, he (Mr. Coombes) must do so.\n\nOur curate said he should take the five shillings and that would\nput things right again with the blanket fund.\n\nSo Mr. Coombes put two half-crowns on the card next the coal-\nscuttle and turned it up.\n\nSure enough, it was the queen again!\n\nAfter that, Uncle John had a florin on, and HE won.\n\nAnd then we all played at it; and we all won.  All except the\ncurate, that is.  He had a very bad quarter of an hour.  I never\nknew a man have such hard luck at cards.  He lost every time.\n\nWe had some more punch after that; and Uncle made such a funny\nmistake in brewing it:  he left out the whisky.  Oh, we did laugh\nat him, and we made him put in double quantity afterwards, as a\nforfeit.\n\nOh, we did have such fun that evening!\n\nAnd then, somehow or other, we must have got on to ghosts; because\nthe next recollection I have is that we were telling ghost stories\nto each other.\n\n\n\nTEDDY BIFFLES' STORY\n\n\n\nTeddy Biffles told the first story, I will let him repeat it here\nin his own words.\n\n(Do not ask me how it is that I recollect his own exact words--\nwhether I took them down in shorthand at the time, or whether he\nhad the story written out, and handed me the MS. afterwards for\npublication in this book, because I should not tell you if you did.\nIt is a trade secret.)\n\nBiffles called his story -\n\n\nJOHNSON AND EMILY\nOR\nTHE FAITHFUL GHOST\n(Teddy Biffles' Story)\n\n\nI was little more than a lad when I first met with Johnson.  I was\nhome for the Christmas holidays, and, it being Christmas Eve, I had\nbeen allowed to sit up very late.  On opening the door of my little\nbedroom, to go in, I found myself face to face with Johnson, who\nwas coming out.  It passed through me, and uttering a long low wail\nof misery, disappeared out of the staircase window.\n\nI was startled for the moment--I was only a schoolboy at the time,\nand had never seen a ghost before,--and felt a little nervous about\ngoing to bed.  But, on reflection, I remembered that it was only\nsinful people that spirits could do any harm to, and so tucked\nmyself up, and went to sleep.\n\nIn the morning I told the Pater what I had seen.\n\n\"Oh yes, that was old Johnson,\" he answered.  \"Don't you be\nfrightened of that; he lives here.\"  And then he told me the poor\nthing's history.\n\nIt seemed that Johnson, when it was alive, had loved, in early\nlife, the daughter of a former lessee of our house, a very\nbeautiful girl, whose Christian name had been Emily.  Father did\nnot know her other name.\n\nJohnson was too poor to marry the girl, so he kissed her good-bye,\ntold her he would soon be back, and went off to Australia to make\nhis fortune.\n\nBut Australia was not then what it became later on.  Travellers\nthrough the bush were few and far between in those early days; and,\neven when one was caught, the portable property found upon the body\nwas often of hardly sufficiently negotiable value to pay the simple\nfuneral expenses rendered necessary.  So that it took Johnson\nnearly twenty years to make his fortune.\n\nThe self-imposed task was accomplished at last, however, and then,\nhaving successfully eluded the police, and got clear out of the\nColony, he returned to England, full of hope and joy, to claim his\nbride.\n\nHe reached the house to find it silent and deserted.  All that the\nneighbours could tell him was that, soon after his own departure,\nthe family had, on one foggy night, unostentatiously disappeared,\nand that nobody had ever seen or heard anything of them since,\nalthough the landlord and most of the local tradesmen had made\nsearching inquiries.\n\nPoor Johnson, frenzied with grief, sought his lost love all over\nthe world.  But he never found her, and, after years of fruitless\neffort, he returned to end his lonely life in the very house where,\nin the happy bygone days, he and his beloved Emily had passed so\nmany blissful hours.\n\nHe had lived there quite alone, wandering about the empty rooms,\nweeping and calling to his Emily to come back to him; and when the\npoor old fellow died, his ghost still kept the business on.\n\nIt was there, the Pater said, when he took the house, and the agent\nhad knocked ten pounds a year off the rent in consequence.\n\nAfter that, I was continually meeting Johnson about the place at\nall times of the night, and so, indeed, were we all.  We used to\nwalk round it and stand aside to let it pass, at first; but, when\nwe grew at home with it, and there seemed no necessity for so much\nceremony, we used to walk straight through it.  You could not say\nit was ever much in the way.\n\nIt was a gentle, harmless, old ghost, too, and we all felt very\nsorry for it, and pitied it.  The women folk, indeed, made quite a\npet of it, for a while.  Its faithfulness touched them so.\n\nBut as time went on, it grew to be a bit of a bore.  You see it was\nfull of sadness.  There was nothing cheerful or genial about it.\nYou felt sorry for it, but it irritated you.  It would sit on the\nstairs and cry for hours at a stretch; and, whenever we woke up in\nthe night, one was sure to hear it pottering about the passages and\nin and out of the different rooms, moaning and sighing, so that we\ncould not get to sleep again very easily.  And when we had a party\non, it would come and sit outside the drawing-room door, and sob\nall the time.  It did not do anybody any harm exactly, but it cast\na gloom over the whole affair.\n\n\"Oh, I'm getting sick of this old fool,\" said the Pater, one\nevening (the Dad can be very blunt, when he is put out, as you\nknow), after Johnson had been more of a nuisance than usual, and\nhad spoiled a good game of whist, by sitting up the chimney and\ngroaning, till nobody knew what were trumps or what suit had been\nled, even.  \"We shall have to get rid of him, somehow or other.  I\nwish I knew how to do it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Mater, \"depend upon it, you'll never see the last\nof him until he's found Emily's grave.  That's what he is after.\nYou find Emily's grave, and put him on to that, and he'll stop\nthere.  That's the only thing to do.  You mark my words.\"\n\nThe idea seemed reasonable, but the difficulty in the way was that\nwe none of us knew where Emily's grave was any more than the ghost\nof Johnson himself did.  The Governor suggested palming off some\nother Emily's grave upon the poor thing, but, as luck would have\nit, there did not seem to have been an Emily of any sort buried\nanywhere for miles round.  I never came across a neighbourhood so\nutterly destitute of dead Emilies.\n\nI thought for a bit, and then I hazarded a suggestion myself.\n\n\"Couldn't we fake up something for the old chap?\" I queried.  \"He\nseems a simple-minded old sort.  He might take it in.  Anyhow, we\ncould but try.\"\n\n\"By Jove, so we will,\" exclaimed my father; and the very next\nmorning we had the workmen in, and fixed up a little mound at the\nbottom of the orchard with a tombstone over it, bearing the\nfollowing inscription:-\n\n\nSACRED\nTO THE MEMORY OF\nEMILY\nHER LAST WORDS WERE -\n\"TELL JOHNSON I LOVE HIM\"\n\n\n\"That ought to fetch him,\" mused the Dad as he surveyed the work\nwhen finished.  \"I am sure I hope it does.\"\n\nIt did!\n\nWe lured him down there that very night; and--well, there, it was\none of the most pathetic things I have ever seen, the way Johnson\nsprang upon that tombstone and wept.  Dad and old Squibbins, the\ngardener, cried like children when they saw it.\n\nJohnson has never troubled us any more in the house since then.  It\nspends every night now, sobbing on the grave, and seems quite\nhappy.\n\n\"There still?\"  Oh yes.  I'll take you fellows down and show you\nit, next time you come to our place:  10 p.m. to 4 a.m. are its\ngeneral hours, 10 to 2 on Saturdays.\n\n\n\nINTERLUDE--THE DOCTOR'S STORY\n\n\n\nIt made me cry very much, that story, young Biffles told it with so\nmuch feeling.  We were all a little thoughtful after it, and I\nnoticed even the old Doctor covertly wipe away a tear.  Uncle John\nbrewed another bowl of punch, however, and we gradually grew more\nresigned.\n\nThe Doctor, indeed, after a while became almost cheerful, and told\nus about the ghost of one of his patients.\n\nI cannot give you his story.  I wish I could.  They all said\nafterwards that it was the best of the lot--the most ghastly and\nterrible--but I could not make any sense of it myself.  It seemed\nso incomplete.\n\nHe began all right and then something seemed to happen, and then he\nwas finishing it.  I cannot make out what he did with the middle of\nthe story.\n\nIt ended up, I know, however, with somebody finding something; and\nthat put Mr. Coombes in mind of a very curious affair that took\nplace at an old Mill, once kept by his brother-in-law.\n\nMr. Coombes said he would tell us his story, and before anybody\ncould stop him, he had begun.\n\nMr Coombes said the story was called -\n\n\nTHE HAUNTED MILL\nOR\nTHE RUINED HOME\n(Mr. Coombes's Story)\n\n\nWell, you all know my brother-in-law, Mr. Parkins (began Mr.\nCoombes, taking the long clay pipe from his mouth, and putting it\nbehind his ear:  we did not know his brother-in-law, but we said we\ndid, so as to save time), and you know of course that he once took\na lease of an old Mill in Surrey, and went to live there.\n\nNow you must know that, years ago, this very mill had been occupied\nby a wicked old miser, who died there, leaving--so it was rumoured-\n-all his money hidden somewhere about the place.  Naturally enough,\nevery one who had since come to live at the mill had tried to find\nthe treasure; but none had ever succeeded, and the local wiseacres\nsaid that nobody ever would, unless the ghost of the miserly miller\nshould, one day, take a fancy to one of the tenants, and disclose\nto him the secret of the hiding-place.\n\nMy brother-in-law did not attach much importance to the story,\nregarding it as an old woman's tale, and, unlike his predecessors,\nmade no attempt whatever to discover the hidden gold.\n\n\"Unless business was very different then from what it is now,\" said\nmy brother-in-law, \"I don't see how a miller could very well have\nsaved anything, however much of a miser he might have been:  at all\nevents, not enough to make it worth the trouble of looking for it.\"\n\nStill, he could not altogether get rid of the idea of that\ntreasure.\n\nOne night he went to bed.  There was nothing very extraordinary\nabout that, I admit.  He often did go to bed of a night.  What WAS\nremarkable, however, was that exactly as the clock of the village\nchurch chimed the last stroke of twelve, my brother-in-law woke up\nwith a start, and felt himself quite unable to go to sleep again.\n\nJoe (his Christian name was Joe) sat up in bed, and looked around.\n\nAt the foot of the bed something stood very still, wrapped in\nshadow.\n\nIt moved into the moonlight, and then my brother-in-law saw that it\nwas the figure of a wizened little old man, in knee-breeches and a\npig-tail.\n\nIn an instant the story of the hidden treasure and the old miser\nflashed across his mind.\n\n\"He's come to show me where it's hid,\" thought my brother-in-law;\nand he resolved that he would not spend all this money on himself,\nbut would devote a small percentage of it towards doing good to\nothers.\n\nThe apparition moved towards the door:  my brother-in-law put on\nhis trousers and followed it.  The ghost went downstairs into the\nkitchen, glided over and stood in front of the hearth, sighed and\ndisappeared.\n\nNext morning, Joe had a couple of bricklayers in, and made them\nhaul out the stove and pull down the chimney, while he stood behind\nwith a potato-sack in which to put the gold.\n\nThey knocked down half the wall, and never found so much as a four-\npenny bit.  My brother-in-law did not know what to think.\n\nThe next night the old man appeared again, and again led the way\ninto the kitchen.  This time, however, instead of going to the\nfireplace, it stood more in the middle of the room, and sighed\nthere.\n\n\"Oh, I see what he means now,\" said my brother-in-law to himself;\n\"it's under the floor.  Why did the old idiot go and stand up\nagainst the stove, so as to make me think it was up the chimney?\"\n\nThey spent the next day in taking up the kitchen floor; but the\nonly thing they found was a three-pronged fork, and the handle of\nthat was broken.\n\nOn the third night, the ghost reappeared, quite unabashed, and for\na third time made for the kitchen.  Arrived there, it looked up at\nthe ceiling and vanished.\n\n\"Umph! he don't seem to have learned much sense where he's been\nto,\" muttered Joe, as he trotted back to bed; \"I should have\nthought he might have done that at first.\"\n\nStill, there seemed no doubt now where the treasure lay, and the\nfirst thing after breakfast they started pulling down the ceiling.\nThey got every inch of the ceiling down, and they took up the\nboards of the room above.\n\nThey discovered about as much treasure as you would expect to find\nin an empty quart-pot.\n\nOn the fourth night, when the ghost appeared, as usual, my brother-\nin-law was so wild that he threw his boots at it; and the boots\npassed through the body, and broke a looking-glass.\n\nOn the fifth night, when Joe awoke, as he always did now at twelve,\nthe ghost was standing in a dejected attitude, looking very\nmiserable.  There was an appealing look in its large sad eyes that\nquite touched my brother-in-law.\n\n\"After all,\" he thought, \"perhaps the silly chap's doing his best.\nMaybe he has forgotten where he really did put it, and is trying to\nremember.  I'll give him another chance.\"\n\nThe ghost appeared grateful and delighted at seeing Joe prepare to\nfollow him, and led the way into the attic, pointed to the ceiling,\nand vanished.\n\n\"Well, he's hit it this time, I do hope,\" said my brother-in-law;\nand next day they set to work to take the roof off the place.\n\nIt took them three days to get the roof thoroughly off, and all\nthey found was a bird's nest; after securing which they covered up\nthe house with tarpaulins, to keep it dry.\n\nYou might have thought that would have cured the poor fellow of\nlooking for treasure.  But it didn't.\n\nHe said there must be something in it all, or the ghost would never\nkeep on coming as it did; and that, having gone so far, he would go\non to the end, and solve the mystery, cost what it might.\n\nNight after night, he would get out of his bed and follow that\nspectral old fraud about the house.  Each night, the old man would\nindicate a different place; and, on each following day, my brother-\nin-law would proceed to break up the mill at the point indicated,\nand look for the treasure.  At the end of three weeks, there was\nnot a room in the mill fit to live in.  Every wall had been pulled\ndown, every floor had been taken up, every ceiling had had a hole\nknocked in it.  And then, as suddenly as they had begun, the\nghost's visits ceased; and my brother-in-law was left in peace, to\nrebuild the place at his leisure.\n\n\"What induced the old image to play such a silly trick upon a\nfamily man and a ratepayer?\"  Ah! that's just what I cannot tell\nyou.\n\nSome said that the ghost of the wicked old man had done it to\npunish my brother-in-law for not believing in him at first; while\nothers held that the apparition was probably that of some deceased\nlocal plumber and glazier, who would naturally take an interest in\nseeing a house knocked about and spoilt.  But nobody knew anything\nfor certain.\n\n\n\nINTERLUDE\n\n\n\nWe had some more punch, and then the curate told us a story.\n\nI could not make head or tail of the curate's story, so I cannot\nretail it to you.  We none of us could make head or tail of that\nstory.  It was a good story enough, so far as material went.  There\nseemed to be an enormous amount of plot, and enough incident to\nhave made a dozen novels.  I never before heard a story containing\nso much incident, nor one dealing with so many varied characters.\n\nI should say that every human being our curate had ever known or\nmet, or heard of, was brought into that story.  There were simply\nhundreds of them.  Every five seconds he would introduce into the\ntale a completely fresh collection of characters accompanied by a\nbrand new set of incidents.\n\nThis was the sort of story it was:-\n\n\"Well, then, my uncle went into the garden, and got his gun, but,\nof course, it wasn't there, and Scroggins said he didn't believe\nit.\"\n\n\"Didn't believe what?  Who's Scroggins?\"\n\n\"Scroggins!  Oh, why he was the other man, you know--it was his wife.\"\n\n\"WHAT was his wife--what's SHE got to do with it?\"\n\n\"Why, that's what I'm telling you.  It was she that found the hat.\nShe'd come up with her cousin to London--her cousin was my sister-\nin-law, and the other niece had married a man named Evans, and\nEvans, after it was all over, had taken the box round to Mr.\nJacobs', because Jacobs' father had seen the man, when he was\nalive, and when he was dead, Joseph--\"\n\n\"Now look here, never you mind Evans and the box; what's become of\nyour uncle and the gun?\"\n\n\"The gun!  What gun?\"\n\n\"Why, the gun that your uncle used to keep in the garden, and that\nwasn't there.  What did he do with it?  Did he kill any of these\npeople with it--these Jacobses and Evanses and Scrogginses and\nJosephses?  Because, if so, it was a good and useful work, and we\nshould enjoy hearing about it.\"\n\n\"No--oh no--how could he?--he had been built up alive in the wall,\nyou know, and when Edward IV spoke to the abbot about it, my sister\nsaid that in her then state of health she could not and would not,\nas it was endangering the child's life.  So they christened it\nHoratio, after her own son, who had been killed at Waterloo before\nhe was born, and Lord Napier himself said--\"\n\n\"Look here, do you know what you are talking about?\" we asked him\nat this point.\n\nHe said \"No,\" but he knew it was every word of it true, because his\naunt had seen it herself.  Whereupon we covered him over with the\ntablecloth, and he went to sleep.\n\nAnd then Uncle told us a story.\n\nUncle said his was a real story.\n\n\n\nTHE GHOST OF THE BLUE CHAMBER\n(My Uncle's Story)\n\n\n\n\"I don't want to make you fellows nervous,\" began my uncle in a\npeculiarly impressive, not to say blood-curdling, tone of voice,\n\"and if you would rather that I did not mention it, I won't; but,\nas a matter of fact, this very house, in which we are now sitting,\nis haunted.\"\n\n\"You don't say that!\" exclaimed Mr. Coombes.\n\n\"What's the use of your saying I don't say it when I have just said\nit?\" retorted my uncle somewhat pettishly.  \"You do talk so\nfoolishly.  I tell you the house is haunted.  Regularly on\nChristmas Eve the Blue Chamber [they called the room next to the\nnursery the 'blue chamber,' at my uncle's, most of the toilet\nservice being of that shade] is haunted by the ghost of a sinful\nman--a man who once killed a Christmas wait with a lump of coal.\"\n\n\"How did he do it?\" asked Mr. Coombes, with eager anxiousness.\n\"Was it difficult?\"\n\n\"I do not know how he did it,\" replied my uncle; \"he did not\nexplain the process.  The wait had taken up a position just inside\nthe front gate, and was singing a ballad.  It is presumed that,\nwhen he opened his mouth for B flat, the lump of coal was thrown by\nthe sinful man from one of the windows, and that it went down the\nwait's throat and choked him.\"\n\n\"You want to be a good shot, but it is certainly worth trying,\"\nmurmured Mr. Coombes thoughtfully.\n\n\"But that was not his only crime, alas!\" added my uncle.  \"Prior to\nthat he had killed a solo cornet-player.\"\n\n\"No!  Is that really a fact?\" exclaimed Mr. Coombes.\n\n\"Of course it's a fact,\" answered my uncle testily; \"at all events,\nas much a fact as you can expect to get in a case of this sort.\n\n\"How very captious you are this evening.  The circumstantial\nevidence was overwhelming.  The poor fellow, the cornet-player, had\nbeen in the neighbourhood barely a month.  Old Mr. Bishop, who kept\nthe 'Jolly Sand Boys' at the time, and from whom I had the story,\nsaid he had never known a more hard-working and energetic solo\ncornet-player.  He, the cornet-player, only knew two tunes, but Mr.\nBishop said that the man could not have played with more vigour, or\nfor more hours in a day, if he had known forty.  The two tunes he\ndid play were \"Annie Laurie\" and \"Home, Sweet Home\"; and as\nregarded his performance of the former melody, Mr. Bishop said that\na mere child could have told what it was meant for.\n\n\"This musician--this poor, friendless artist used to come regularly\nand play in this street just opposite for two hours every evening.\nOne evening he was seen, evidently in response to an invitation,\ngoing into this very house, BUT WAS NEVER SEEN COMING OUT OF IT!\"\n\n\"Did the townsfolk try offering any reward for his recovery?\" asked\nMr. Coombes.\n\n\"Not a ha'penny,\" replied my uncle.\n\n\"Another summer,\" continued my uncle, \"a German band visited here,\nintending--so they announced on their arrival--to stay till the\nautumn.\n\n\"On the second day from their arrival, the whole company, as fine\nand healthy a body of men as one could wish to see, were invited to\ndinner by this sinful man, and, after spending the whole of the\nnext twenty-four hours in bed, left the town a broken and dyspeptic\ncrew; the parish doctor, who had attended them, giving it as his\nopinion that it was doubtful if they would, any of them, be fit to\nplay an air again.\"\n\n\"You--you don't know the recipe, do you?\" asked Mr. Coombes.\n\n\"Unfortunately I do not,\" replied my uncle; \"but the chief\ningredient was said to have been railway refreshment-room pork-pie.\n\n\"I forget the man's other crimes,\" my uncle went on; \"I used to\nknow them all at one time, but my memory is not what it was.  I do\nnot, however, believe I am doing his memory an injustice in\nbelieving that he was not entirely unconnected with the death, and\nsubsequent burial, of a gentleman who used to play the harp with\nhis toes; and that neither was he altogether unresponsible for the\nlonely grave of an unknown stranger who had once visited the\nneighbourhood, an Italian peasant lad, a performer upon the barrel-\norgan.\n\n\"Every Christmas Eve,\" said my uncle, cleaving with low impressive\ntones the strange awed silence that, like a shadow, seemed to have\nslowly stolen into and settled down upon the room, \"the ghost of\nthis sinful man haunts the Blue Chamber, in this very house.\nThere, from midnight until cock-crow, amid wild muffled shrieks and\ngroans and mocking laughter and the ghostly sound of horrid blows,\nit does fierce phantom fight with the spirits of the solo cornet-\nplayer and the murdered wait, assisted at intervals, by the shades\nof the German band; while the ghost of the strangled harpist plays\nmad ghostly melodies with ghostly toes on the ghost of a broken\nharp.\n\nUncle said the Blue Chamber was comparatively useless as a\nsleeping-apartment on Christmas Eve.\n\n\"Hark!\" said uncle, raising a warning hand towards the ceiling,\nwhile we held our breath, and listened; \"Hark!  I believe they are\nat it now--in the BLUE CHAMBER!\"\n\n\n\nTHE BLUE CHAMBER\n\n\n\nI rose up, and said that I would sleep in the Blue Chamber.\n\nBefore I tell you my own story, however--the story of what happened\nin the Blue Chamber--I would wish to preface it with -\n\n\n\nA PERSONAL EXPLANATION\n\n\n\nI feel a good deal of hesitation about telling you this story of my\nown.  You see it is not a story like the other stories that I have\nbeen telling you, or rather that Teddy Biffles, Mr. Coombes, and my\nuncle have been telling you:  it is a true story.  It is not a\nstory told by a person sitting round a fire on Christmas Eve,\ndrinking whisky punch:  it is a record of events that actually\nhappened.\n\nIndeed, it is not a 'story' at all, in the commonly accepted\nmeaning of the word:  it is a report.  It is, I feel, almost out of\nplace in a book of this kind.  It is more suitable to a biography,\nor an English history.\n\nThere is another thing that makes it difficult for me to tell you\nthis story, and that is, that it is all about myself.  In telling\nyou this story, I shall have to keep on talking about myself; and\ntalking about ourselves is what we modern-day authors have a strong\nobjection to doing.  If we literary men of the new school have one\npraiseworthy yearning more ever present to our minds than another\nit is the yearning never to appear in the slightest degree\negotistical.\n\nI myself, so I am told, carry this coyness--this shrinking\nreticence concerning anything connected with my own personality,\nalmost too far; and people grumble at me because of it.  People\ncome to me and say -\n\n\"Well, now, why don't you talk about yourself a bit?  That's what\nwe want to read about.  Tell us something about yourself.\"\n\nBut I have always replied, \"No.\"  It is not that I do not think the\nsubject an interesting one.  I cannot myself conceive of any topic\nmore likely to prove fascinating to the world as a whole, or at all\nevents to the cultured portion of it.  But I will not do it, on\nprinciple.  It is inartistic, and it sets a bad example to the\nyounger men.  Other writers (a few of them) do it, I know; but I\nwill not--not as a rule.\n\nUnder ordinary circumstances, therefore, I should not tell you this\nstory at all.  I should say to myself, \"No!  It is a good story, it\nis a moral story, it is a strange, weird, enthralling sort of a\nstory; and the public, I know, would like to hear it; and I should\nlike to tell it to them; but it is all about myself--about what I\nsaid, and what I saw, and what I did, and I cannot do it.  My\nretiring, anti-egotistical nature will not permit me to talk in\nthis way about myself.\"\n\nBut the circumstances surrounding this story are not ordinary, and\nthere are reasons prompting me, in spite of my modesty, to rather\nwelcome the opportunity of relating it.\n\nAs I stated at the beginning, there has been unpleasantness in our\nfamily over this party of ours, and, as regards myself in\nparticular, and my share in the events I am now about to set forth,\ngross injustice has been done me.\n\nAs a means of replacing my character in its proper light--of\ndispelling the clouds of calumny and misconception with which it\nhas been darkened, I feel that my best course is to give a simple,\ndignified narration of the plain facts, and allow the unprejudiced\nto judge for themselves.  My chief object, I candidly confess, is\nto clear myself from unjust aspersion.  Spurred by this motive--and\nI think it is an honourable and a right motive--I find I am enabled\nto overcome my usual repugnance to talking about myself, and can\nthus tell -\n\n\n\nMY OWN STORY\n\n\n\nAs soon as my uncle had finished his story, I, as I have already\ntold you, rose up and said that _I_ would sleep in the Blue Chamber\nthat very night.\n\n\"Never!\" cried my uncle, springing up.  \"You shall not put yourself\nin this deadly peril.  Besides, the bed is not made.\"\n\n\"Never mind the bed,\" I replied.  \"I have lived in furnished\napartments for gentlemen, and have been accustomed to sleep on beds\nthat have never been made from one year's end to the other.  Do not\nthwart me in my resolve.  I am young, and have had a clear\nconscience now for over a month.  The spirits will not harm me.  I\nmay even do them some little good, and induce them to be quiet and\ngo away.  Besides, I should like to see the show.\"\n\nSaying which, I sat down again.  (How Mr. Coombes came to be in my\nchair, instead of at the other side of the room, where he had been\nall the evening; and why he never offered to apologise when I sat\nright down on top of him; and why young Biffles should have tried\nto palm himself off upon me as my Uncle John, and induced me, under\nthat erroneous impression, to shake him by the hand for nearly\nthree minutes, and tell him that I had always regarded him as\nfather,--are matters that, to this day, I have never been able to\nfully understand.)\n\nThey tried to dissuade me from what they termed my foolhardy\nenterprise, but I remained firm, and claimed my privilege.  I was\n'the guest.'  'The guest' always sleeps in the haunted chamber on\nChristmas Eve; it is his perquisite.\n\nThey said that if I put it on that footing, they had, of course, no\nanswer; and they lighted a candle for me, and accompanied me\nupstairs in a body.\n\nWhether elevated by the feeling that I was doing a noble action, or\nanimated by a mere general consciousness of rectitude, is not for\nme to say, but I went upstairs that night with remarkable buoyancy.\nIt was as much as I could do to stop at the landing when I came to\nit; I felt I wanted to go on up to the roof.  But, with the help of\nthe banisters, I restrained my ambition, wished them all good-\nnight, and went in and shut the door.\n\nThings began to go wrong with me from the very first.  The candle\ntumbled out of the candlestick before my hand was off the lock.  It\nkept on tumbling out of the candlestick, and every time I picked\nput it up and put it in, it tumbled out again:  I never saw such a\nslippery candle.  I gave up attempting to use the candlestick at\nlast, and carried the candle about in my hand; and, even then, it\nwould not keep upright.  So I got wild and threw it out of window,\nand undressed and went to bed in the dark.\n\nI did not go to sleep,--I did not feel sleepy at all,--I lay on my\nback, looking up at the ceiling, and thinking of things.  I wish I\ncould remember some of the ideas that came to me as I lay there,\nbecause they were so amusing.  I laughed at them myself till the\nbed shook.\n\nI had been lying like this for half an hour or so, and had\nforgotten all about the ghost, when, on casually casting my eyes\nround the room, I noticed for the first time a singularly\ncontented-looking phantom, sitting in the easy-chair by the fire,\nsmoking the ghost of a long clay pipe.\n\nI fancied for the moment, as most people would under similar\ncircumstances, that I must be dreaming.  I sat up, and rubbed my\neyes.\n\nNo!  It was a ghost, clear enough.  I could see the back of the\nchair through his body.  He looked over towards me, took the\nshadowy pipe from his lips, and nodded.\n\nThe most surprising part of the whole thing to me was that I did\nnot feel in the least alarmed.  If anything, I was rather pleased\nto see him.  It was company.\n\nI said, \"Good evening.  It's been a cold day!\"\n\nHe said he had not noticed it himself, but dared say I was right.\n\nWe remained silent for a few seconds, and then, wishing to put it\npleasantly, I said, \"I believe I have the honour of addressing the\nghost of the gentleman who had the accident with the wait?\"\n\nHe smiled, and said it was very good of me to remember it.  One\nwait was not much to boast of, but still, every little helped.\n\nI was somewhat staggered at his answer.  I had expected a groan of\nremorse.  The ghost appeared, on the contrary, to be rather\nconceited over the business.  I thought that, as he had taken my\nreference to the wait so quietly, perhaps he would not be offended\nif I questioned him about the organ-grinder.  I felt curious about\nthat poor boy.\n\n\"Is it true,\" I asked, \"that you had a hand in the death of that\nItalian peasant lad who came to the town once with a barrel-organ\nthat played nothing but Scotch airs?\"\n\nHe quite fired up.  \"Had a hand in it!\" he exclaimed indignantly.\n\"Who has dared to pretend that he assisted me?  I murdered the\nyouth myself.  Nobody helped me.  Alone I did it.  Show me the man\nwho says I didn't.\"\n\nI calmed him.  I assured him that I had never, in my own mind,\ndoubted that he was the real and only assassin, and I went on and\nasked him what he had done with the body of the cornet-player he\nhad killed.\n\nHe said, \"To which one may you be alluding?\"\n\n\"Oh, were there any more then?\" I inquired.\n\nHe smiled, and gave a little cough.  He said he did not like to\nappear to be boasting, but that, counting trombones, there were\nseven.\n\n\"Dear me!\" I replied, \"you must have had quite a busy time of it,\none way and another.\"\n\nHe said that perhaps he ought not to be the one to say so, but that\nreally, speaking of ordinary middle-society, he thought there were\nfew ghosts who could look back upon a life of more sustained\nusefulness.\n\nHe puffed away in silence for a few seconds, while I sat watching\nhim.  I had never seen a ghost smoking a pipe before, that I could\nremember, and it interested me.\n\nI asked him what tobacco he used, and he replied, \"The ghost of cut\ncavendish, as a rule.\"\n\nHe explained that the ghost of all the tobacco that a man smoked in\nlife belonged to him when he became dead.  He said he himself had\nsmoked a good deal of cut cavendish when he was alive, so that he\nwas well supplied with the ghost of it now.\n\nI observed that it was a useful thing to know that, and I made up\nmy mind to smoke as much tobacco as ever I could before I died.\n\nI thought I might as well start at once, so I said I would join him\nin a pipe, and he said, \"Do, old man\"; and I reached over and got\nout the necessary paraphernalia from my coat pocket and lit up.\n\nWe grew quite chummy after that, and he told me all his crimes.  He\nsaid he had lived next door once to a young lady who was learning\nto play the guitar, while a gentleman who practised on the bass-\nviol lived opposite.  And he, with fiendish cunning, had introduced\nthese two unsuspecting young people to one another, and had\npersuaded them to elope with each other against their parents'\nwishes, and take their musical instruments with them; and they had\ndone so, and, before the honeymoon was over, SHE had broken his\nhead with the bass-viol, and HE had tried to cram the guitar down\nher throat, and had injured her for life.\n\nMy friend said he used to lure muffin-men into the passage and then\nstuff them with their own wares till they burst and died.  He said\nhe had quieted eighteen that way.\n\nYoung men and women who recited long and dreary poems at evening\nparties, and callow youths who walked about the streets late at\nnight, playing concertinas, he used to get together and poison in\nbatches of ten, so as to save expense; and park orators and\ntemperance lecturers he used to shut up six in a small room with a\nglass of water and a collection-box apiece, and let them talk each\nother to death.\n\nIt did one good to listen to him.\n\nI asked him when he expected the other ghosts--the ghosts of the\nwait and the cornet-player, and the German band that Uncle John had\nmentioned.  He smiled, and said they would never come again, any of\nthem.\n\nI said, \"Why; isn't it true, then, that they meet you here every\nChristmas Eve for a row?\"\n\nHe replied that it WAS true.  Every Christmas Eve, for twenty-five\nyears, had he and they fought in that room; but they would never\ntrouble him nor anybody else again.  One by one, had he laid them\nout, spoilt, and utterly useless for all haunting purposes.  He had\nfinished off the last German-band ghost that very evening, just\nbefore I came upstairs, and had thrown what was left of it out\nthrough the slit between the window-sashes.  He said it would never\nbe worth calling a ghost again.\n\n\"I suppose you will still come yourself, as usual?\" I said.  \"They\nwould be sorry to miss you, I know.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" he replied; \"there's nothing much to come for\nnow.  Unless,\" he added kindly, \"YOU are going to be here.  I'll\ncome if you will sleep here next Christmas Eve.\"\n\n\"I have taken a liking to you,\" he continued; \"you don't fly off,\nscreeching, when you see a party, and your hair doesn't stand on\nend.  You've no idea,\" he said, \"how sick I am of seeing people's\nhair standing on end.\"\n\nHe said it irritated him.\n\nJust then a slight noise reached us from the yard below, and he\nstarted and turned deathly black.\n\n\"You are ill,\" I cried, springing towards him; \"tell me the best\nthing to do for you.  Shall I drink some brandy, and give you the\nghost of it?\"\n\nHe remained silent, listening intently for a moment, and then he\ngave a sigh of relief, and the shade came back to his cheek.\n\n\"It's all right,\" he murmured; \"I was afraid it was the cock.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's too early for that,\" I said.  \"Why, it's only the middle\nof the night.\"\n\n\"Oh, that doesn't make any difference to those cursed chickens,\" he\nreplied bitterly.  \"They would just as soon crow in the middle of\nthe night as at any other time--sooner, if they thought it would\nspoil a chap's evening out.  I believe they do it on purpose.\"\n\nHe said a friend of his, the ghost of a man who had killed a water-\nrate collector, used to haunt a house in Long Acre, where they kept\nfowls in the cellar, and every time a policeman went by and flashed\nhis bull's-eye down the grating, the old cock there would fancy it\nwas the sun, and start crowing like mad; when, of course, the poor\nghost had to dissolve, and it would, in consequence, get back home\nsometimes as early as one o'clock in the morning, swearing\nfearfully because it had only been out for an hour.\n\nI agreed that it seemed very unfair.\n\n\"Oh, it's an absurd arrangement altogether,\" he continued, quite\nangrily.  \"I can't imagine what our old man could have been\nthinking of when he made it.  As I have said to him, over and over\nagain, 'Have a fixed time, and let everybody stick to it--say four\no'clock in summer, and six in winter.  Then one would know what one\nwas about.'\"\n\n\"How do you manage when there isn't any cock handy?\" I inquired.\n\nHe was on the point of replying, when again he started and\nlistened.  This time I distinctly heard Mr. Bowles's cock, next\ndoor, crow twice.\n\n\"There you are,\" he said, rising and reaching for his hat; \"that's\nthe sort of thing we have to put up with.  What IS the time?\"\n\nI looked at my watch, and found it was half-past three.\n\n\"I thought as much,\" he muttered.  \"I'll wring that blessed bird's\nneck if I get hold of it.\"  And he prepared to go.\n\n\"If you can wait half a minute,\" I said, getting out of bed, \"I'll\ngo a bit of the way with you.\"\n\n\"It's very good of you,\" he rejoined, pausing, \"but it seems unkind\nto drag you out.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" I replied; \"I shall like a walk.\"  And I partially\ndressed myself, and took my umbrella; and he put his arm through\nmine, and we went out together.\n\nJust by the gate we met Jones, one of the local constables.\n\n\"Good-night, Jones,\" I said (I always feel affable at Christmas-\ntime).\n\n\"Good-night, sir,\" answered the man a little gruffly, I thought.\n\"May I ask what you're a-doing of?\"\n\n\"Oh, it's all right,\" I responded, with a wave of my umbrella; \"I'm\njust seeing my friend part of the way home.\"\n\nHe said, \"What friend?\"\n\n\"Oh, ah, of course,\" I laughed; \"I forgot.  He's invisible to you.\nHe is the ghost of the gentleman that killed the wait.  I'm just\ngoing to the corner with him.\"\n\n\"Ah, I don't think I would, if I was you, sir,\" said Jones\nseverely.  \"If you take my advice, you'll say good-bye to your\nfriend here, and go back indoors.  Perhaps you are not aware that\nyou are walking about with nothing on but a night-shirt and a pair\nof boots and an opera-hat.  Where's your trousers?\"\n\nI did not like the man's manner at all.  I said, \"Jones!  I don't\nwish to have to report you, but it seems to me you've been\ndrinking.  My trousers are where a man's trousers ought to be--on\nhis legs.  I distinctly remember putting them on.\"\n\n\"Well, you haven't got them on now,\" he retorted.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" I replied.  \"I tell you I have; I think I\nought to know.\"\n\n\"I think so, too,\" he answered, \"but you evidently don't.  Now you\ncome along indoors with me, and don't let's have any more of it.\"\n\nUncle John came to the door at this point, having been awaked, I\nsuppose, by the altercation; and, at the same moment, Aunt Maria\nappeared at the window in her nightcap.\n\nI explained the constable's mistake to them, treating the matter as\nlightly as I could, so as not to get the man into trouble, and I\nturned for confirmation to the ghost.\n\nHe was gone!  He had left me without a word--without even saying\ngood-bye!\n\nIt struck me as so unkind, his having gone off in that way, that I\nburst into tears; and Uncle John came out, and led me back into the\nhouse.\n\nOn reaching my room, I discovered that Jones was right.  I had not\nput on my trousers, after all.  They were still hanging over the\nbed-rail.  I suppose, in my anxiety not to keep the ghost waiting,\nI must have forgotten them.\n\nSuch are the plain facts of the case, out of which it must,\ndoubtless, to the healthy, charitable mind appear impossible that\ncalumny could spring.\n\nBut it has.\n\nPersons--I say 'persons'--have professed themselves unable to\nunderstand the simple circumstances herein narrated, except in the\nlight of explanations at once misleading and insulting.  Slurs have\nbeen cast and aspersions made on me by those of my own flesh and\nblood.\n\nBut I bear no ill-feeling.  I merely, as I have said, set forth\nthis statement for the purpose of clearing my character from\ninjurious suspicion.","title":"Told After Supper","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":10734}