The sociable ghost Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.
I got to sea again after a month or so on shore. Well: my wife had a
portrait of me, and about every half hour she used to hale my successor
up before it and tell the poor devil to look at it and see a man and,
what one looked like. She dinned my virtues into his ears so much that
at last the poor wretch died in self-defense.”
“And where is the lady now?” asked the young man with interest.
“Somewhere in Boston, I believe. The last I heard of her she was giving
my money away to the missionaries. I never had any use for missionaries,
dead or alive. They come on board your ship, and the best you have is
not too good for them, and they want to hold service every Sunday. I
know a missionary as soon as I hear him speak. They always say Sabbath
for Sunday, and babe for baby. There's lots of them down here.”
For once the newspaper man forgot his tact, and said:
“I should think that you would have been glad to have them hold service
for the sailors. I have heard that they are mostly amenable to religious
instruction and guidance.”
“Yah! Just stow that. The sailors don't want any of their salvation any
more than the Chinamen, and it don’t do any more good. You can't make a
silk purse out of a pig’s ear, and sailors are nothing more than living
machines when they are on board ship. They are all right aboard ship,
but they are no good on land, and whoever wants to do a good turn to a
sailor wants to see that he gets a ship as soon as the voyage is done.
They need knocking down every day with a marlinspike, and to get a taste
of the rope’s end every ten minutes, to give them a good appetite so
they won't be forever grumbling about their grub.”
The Captain might have continued indefinitely had not a polka struck up,
and all the ghosts began to dance again. The dance of the marionettes
came back to the young man’s mind with insistent force, but he tried to
hide his amusement.
To keep out of the way of the dancers the young man drew back and walked
along close to the wall, and as he did so he was suddenly struck by the
sight of a man stooping down so that he could eat out of a dish on the
buffet without touching it with his hands. It was such a strange sight
that he could not help making a mental note of it, and he really thought
that he had not let the ghost see his curiosity. But it was not so, for
the ghost turned and faced him and said sadly:
“Sir, I hope you will not think that my disgusting action is done through
ignorance, nor even a lack of decency. I simply cannot eat any other way
and I am very hungry. Owing to my affliction I could not present myself
at the table with the others, and I thought that while all the others
are dancing, I could satisfy my hunger without being noticed.”
The newspaper man felt that here was another case of misery out of the
ordinary, and he asked the ghost to tell him his trouble, and if it was
anything that he could be of assistance in he would be glad to do all in
his power. The ghost came to his rescue in a most unexpected manner, by
suddenly holding up two mutilated stumps of arms. They had evidently
been splintered off between the elbows and shoulders. By no effort could
the poor fellow have been able to reach his mouth with either stump had
he tried.
The reporter understood at once and felt so sorry for him that his
usually ready tongue refused to form a word. He thought that it was more
than probable that this accident had taken place in the Revolutionary
war, and then he thought that that was too far away, and doubtless he
must be one of the heroes of the Civil War. But the ghost as if
answering a question, said:
“No, it was not in any war that my arms were smashed like that. If you
would be so good as to help me get something to eat, I will tell you
about it later. You can cut up some bread and meat and I must eat them
right off the dish, and drink the best I can. It is very humiliating but
I must bear it.”
The young man took of the different viands and cut them into convenient
pieces and then offered to hand them on a fork. If ghosts could shed
tears of gratitude from their hollow eyes this one would surely have
wept, so much was he touched by the action. He ate and drank with an
excellent appetite, and when he had all that he desired, he said:
“Now, sir, I am at your disposal. I will tell you why it is that I am
reduced to this condition and am obliged to eat like an animal. The
story began in life, and it was not until I had been down here two years
that this happened. I found an enemy and he it was who made me this
pitiable object. The reason? Oh, I lived in New York in a handsome house
of my own in Sixty-fourth Street, near the park on the East Side. I
mention this, as the proximity has something to do with the story. That
is, the big reservoir is there and that causes a higher pressure of
water in the houses there than in almost any other part of the city. I
lived there in peace and contentment, and was something of a savant. So
you can see that I am not altogether to blame for what follows. You know
how all the houses are built, one beside the other. On the West side of
my house was that of a man—well—we will call him Dinklespiel. That was
not his real name—but it is good enough for him after the way he has
treated me. Yes; I will call him Dinklespiel. Well; his front door was
right beside mine. You could reach into his hall way over the low stone
division. The next house on the East side was the whole width of the
house away. Now, if Mr. Dinklespiel had lived in that house this would
not have occurred.
“It so happened that our man who attended to all these things for me was
out in the country getting the place in readiness for our annual
flitting, and there was no one to clean the sidewalk and we had had coal
in the day before. I admit that it would have been better to hire a man
as my wife suggested, but somehow I felt like doing it myself, and that
is how the trouble began.”
Here the ghost appeared lost in reflection so the young man asked what
would have been better left to a hired man. The ghost shook off his
distraction and resumed.
“Why, I got the garden hose—well—I got the hose and washed down the
sidewalk. I told you about the high pressure, and that was the cause of
it all. I got the hose,—the hose—and dragged it up from the cellar, and
told the girl to go down and turn the water on, when I whistled. This
hose was bought to protect us from fire as well as to wash the sidewalk
and water the grass in the back yard, and it had a nozzle one inch in
diameter. It was a big hose, and when James took hold of it I always
noticed that his face grew red as though he found it hard to hold. But I
always thought that it was his ignorance that made him so afraid of it,
and I was sure that I could manage it all right and I even rather prided
myself on the showing I should make of the triumph of mind over matter.
I had never tried to manage a hose before, and even now I should not, I
think, have had any trouble if there had been no hole in the hose.
“I drew the hose up into the area way, and then whistled, and the girl
turned on the water. Why, my dear sir, it nearly jerked me off my feet
before I knew what had happened to me, and I held the nozzle straight up
with both hands with all my strength, and pointed the stream upward so
that I could get a little accustomed to it, and at the same time wash
down the front of the house. Suddenly I heard a strange sound in the
dining room where my little boy was looking at me, and saw that I had in
some way for which I could not account nearly drowned him. I heard him
run screaming up stairs to his mother, and then I thought I would go up
the front steps and play on the second story windows, for it was summer
and everything was dusty. Once I had learned to manipulate the hose, it
was a delight. I had partially overcome my fear of it. Why, the violent
stream rushed out like steam from an overheated boiler. It fairly
screamed, the force was so great. Well, I played on the windows and then
on the whole front of the house, and was enjoying my labor when I became
aware that the servant was calling me from the area, and I bent over to
hear her, keeping firm hands on the powerful nozzle that was twisting
and trying to wriggle out of my hands all the time. Just as she opened
her mouth—well—somehow she got very wet, and sat down in the middle of
the area, and I turned around so that she should not think I was
laughing at her miserable plight. Anyhow I had done enough up there and
I intended to attack the dusty sidewalk, when my wife came to the front
door and opened it unexpectedly just as I was in the act of turning, and
somehow she received the full force of the stream right in the face and
she went down like a shot. No one could blame me if in the face of this
disaster I forgot and left the squirming hose to work its will and tried
to raise her.
“She did not wait for me, however, but told me with a withering look to
take that thing down cellar at once. I tried to explain, but she shut
the door, and I started to obey her, but, sir, you could scarcely believe
me, but I had lost control of the thing, and the more I tried to manage
it the worse it got, and at last I found that there was a hole in the
hose about a foot from the nozzle and that was running in opposition to
the nozzle. I was wet to the skin, and the more I tried to get down the
steps the worse it wriggled and twisted until I was at my wits’ end to
know what to do.
“At last I seemed to obtain a little command of it and was in the act of
turning around to come down when I became conscious that there was a
hearse and two carriages drawn up in front of my next neighbor's house,
and before I could move the door opened and six men came out bearing a
large coffin. I was struck dumb and almost blind, and did not know what
I was doing, and—well—before I came to my senses every one of those
pall-bearers was wet through, and the force of the water threw the
flowers in every direction, and as if this were not enough the vicious
stream hit the clergyman directly between the eyes and made him fall
backward, and that was the reason that a number of people who had
gathered to see a funeral at that unusual hour laughed. I was actually
paralyzed with the whole thing and stood there helpless, trying to hold
up the nozzle, not knowing that it was pouring floods into the vestibule
of the dead man’s house. Finally some one came up the steps and took the
wretched thing away from me, and dragged it down to the area, and I
scarcely knew enough to go after it.
“I have often thought that scientific men are not quite so well adapted
to cope with the small things of daily life as those more in touch with
mundane affairs. I was so distressed at my complete failure to master so
simple a thing as a hose, and above all at the terrible disaster which
had befallen me in the involuntary disrespect to my neighbor, that I was
like a man dead.
“He had been away and died and was brought home for burial, and that was
why the funeral was private and so early, for he was to be taken quite a
distance for interment.
“So you can conceive of my distress, particularly as my wife did not
feel willing to console me. On the contrary, she said quite a number of
things which I am sure she would have left unsaid had she reflected. And
I had to get her a new frock and one for the servant. After a while the
neighbors stopped asking me impertinent things about my garden hose, and
I was beginning to feel a little better about it when I fell ill and
died.
“My funeral was marked by decorum, and everything passed off well. I was
not sorry to come here for I had studied a little of everything else,
and this being the unknowable held certain charms for me. I am of a