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.

something before he gets a street named after him. Some of the old members of these families were not so rich as their descendants are today. There were no millionaires in my time in New York.” CHAPTER II. THE REPORTER MEETS THE LEADER OF THE FOUR HUNDRED The Sociable Ghost and the newspaper man continued their walk though the ghost still limped painfully. The reporter tried to bring himself to offer his arm for the ghost to lean upon, but somehow he could not seem to care to get too close to the living skeleton as he mentally considered him. Still he would not willingly have dispensed with his company. Finally the ghost took up the conversation where he had left it off. “I was not born then, let alone being dead, but I have often conversed with the founders of this mother of churches in this country, and also the founders of those first families at our reunions. You just ought to hear them go on about the extravagance of their descendants. They say that when they were taking up subscriptions for building the new steeple, Joseph Aspinwall gave one pound six, and Oliver Schuyler put down one pound; Mrs. Coddington gave two pounds, while Gilbert Livingstone gave five shillings and six pence. Philip Schuyler donated six shillings, Mrs. Hamilton gave two pounds fifteen shillings, and Rip Van Dam, one pound six shillings, and so on no one giving much, if any more than two pounds. This was while John Cruger was vestryman with Isaac Decker and Josephus Bayard as co-laborers. I notice that the women were more generous then as now to church matters and needs, and it has always been a question with me why this is so. Now, is it because as a general rule the women did not have to work for the money as the husbands did, and so they did not appreciate its value, or is it because the women are by nature more generous and more religious than men? I heard somewhere once that it was said that it is the women who sustain the churches. Well, I don’t care, Wow! That toe twinges!” All this did not interest the young reporter as much as the ghost seemed to think it should, but politeness forbade him to make any sign. His appetite was whetted for what was to come and he did not wish to destroy his chances. He had a vague idea that he had read something like this in the archives of this old and honored church, while preparing a description of the three hundredth anniversary, but as he saw that the ghost liked to enlighten his ignorance he wisely kept silence. At this moment the ghost said: “Come on, it will soon be time now. But before we go take one look at the headstone erected to the memory of William Bradford. He was the first Government printer and spent fifty years in the service, and left this world worn out with old age and labor. He printed the first Bible in this country, and his old press is kept as a memorial. “He was a decent, simple, hardworking chap, and used all his strength in his work. And, he didn't get rich either. Well; maybe you have seen instances of the truly good getting the fool good to sign away their lives for the benefit of the truly good. I put this matter in a mild form, for I am apt to get hot under the collar when I think of how many of the fool-good fellows are bound down to a life of underpaid toil to give others the benefit of it all.” Here the ghost paused impressively, and the reporter bowed seriously as though fully agreeing with him. In fact he did fully agree with the ghost completely, for he knew something of the matter himself in a small way. The ghost resumed: “When I say the truly good, I mean those who are so very good that the fool-good are blinded by their reputation and so toil for them for next to nothing. I tell you, publishers have no pudding down here, and the religious ones seem to be singled out for special punishment. One man is here tonight who used to run a religious paper. All he paid his writers was one dollar a column, and however hard they tried they couldn’t earn over six or seven dollars a week. He made contracts with the poor fellows to write for him alone, so they could not help themselves when he cut down the number of columns. One of these unfortunate men wrote a book while this contract was in force and it made quite a success and blow me! if the religious chap did not go and claim the book, too. How it would have turned out I do not know for the publisher died. I'll show him to you when we go down, that is if you would care to see him.” “You bet I would!” said the reporter with sudden warmth. Whereupon the ghost said in a manner to calm his just anger: “I don't think they are all so bad. But one thing I have noticed and that is that all the publishers have money, and all the things that money brings, while the great majority of the writers are poor, some of them miserably so. All the religious publishers and editors are down here and rather flock together. They seem to enjoy talking over the tricks of trade. I used to think that I was something of a pirate, too, in my way, and therefore their conversations interested me more probably, than they might otherwise have done. If you were to hear them talk together you would think much less of them than you do now.” “I couldn’t!” answered the young man, with emphasis and conviction. “I will show you another thing tonight that ought to please you if you take any special interest in publishers, and that is what is done with those publishers who make the writers wait for their money until their stories are published. It would be a balm for the hearts of the authors, and I wish you would let the writers know about it. It may be a poor satisfaction for those who die before their stories are published. It has always been a satisfaction to me to whale the fellow that tries to cheat me out of my own, and if I can’t whale him to see someone else do it and do it up brown.” “They tell us that we must speak no evil of the dead,” said the young man tritely. “These dead don't wait for anyone to tell what they have done, They think it is all right. What they have to suffer in seeing the papers, or the books they used to work on and about done so much better than they could do while alive! The policies of the whole thing are changed in many cases and that is very bitter. Well, with one last word on this subject I will let them alone. It seems to me that when a man writes a book or a story and offers it for sale, he has the same right to offer it as an artist his picture, or a cabinet-maker to offer his wares, and I can't see why the author should have to wait for his pay any more than the others. If it suits the publisher enough to cause him to buy it the buyer should pay for it. I have heard men tell here how they had had stories accepted for publication and kept there year after year, and then they died before they were published. And, as soon as they did die the publishers used them at once and paid nothing even to the widows. Now, of course, I have no means of knowing much about these matters, but it seems to me to be an outrage if it is true. I used to write poetry on shipboard, at night, and I am sure that I should not have liked this sort of treatment, if it is true.” “Some of them are several times meaner than any you have mentioned. But, show them to me if you please,” said the reporter, who had a bone to pick with two or three dead publishers. “I will. I am sorry for poor Bradford, for they have gone and restored his whole epitaph. He was good to me when I first came down and kindly taught me the rules. It is a bit rough until you have learned the ropes after you are dead.” “Will you excuse me if I ask you a question? I have always been led to think that those who are dead dislike to hear the word dead. They are supposed to prefer to hear, ‘passed into spirit life’ and ‘gone to Summerland’ instead. All the mediums use that word, in palliation and instead of the harsher one. Dead, gives one a shock to hear,” asked the young man in a laudable desire to learn all he could. “Poppycock and moonshine!” was the unexpected response. “There is no such thing as a medium. No, sir; they get your money and—do you suppose that one of them could get you the invitation to come down here tonight? You are soon to enter the very doors of ghostdom, but not through the efforts of any medium. No, sir; they trade upon your sense of loss and sorrow when anyone of yours dies, and they foster and encourage your desire to penetrate the mystery of the future life. They get your money by fraud, working upon your best sentiments. They ought to be keelhauled, and should be if I had my way. I'd string them to the yardarm and whack them with a rope’s end. If the tie that bound you to anyone you loved is broken by death there is no third party that can come and for a certain sum in cash become the medium of communication between you, and I say, lick the man that tells you different. You are getting this straight from a real ghost. In my warmth I had almost forgotten that you asked if we who are dead dislike to hear anyone say the word Dead. Quite the contrary, for we are dead and it would be very silly to try to disguise the fact, and we do not try to down here. Fact is truth and truth governs down here. Dead we are and dead we stay, and after all I am not sure that we are not quite as well, and sometimes better off, than when alive. If we miss some things we escape others. Well, come on; but before we go let me say that the Trinity ghosts are the hosts tonight and they feel themselves the most aristocratic ghosts in the land, so I wished to caution you so that you would avoid hurting anyone’s feelings by seeming to doubt it.” “I shall be very careful, sir, and hope you will be near enough to forewarn me of any possible mistake. I assure you that I appreciate this distinguished honor more than I can say. But, I should like to ask if any of the Vanderbilts will be here tonight?” “No, young man; there will be no Vanderbilts here tonight. But I can tell you something else that may interest you, and that is where old John Jacob Astor is tonight. You have doubtless heard that the old man was a worker from head to foot. Work was ingrained in his thrifty nature. He wandered all over America to buy up fur skins. For a long time he carried them on his back, so we are told, until his business had grown so that he required help, and could afford to pay for it. Even then he would gladly have carried them all, so great was his instinct of thrift. Then, when he found he could not tie them up alone he bought a baling press. This baling press he came to love. It marked for him the very spirit of progress, though it is a clumsy old thing made of beams and iron levers and screws. To this he confided his ambitions and joys and sorrows. So when his year of dormant waiting is over, like ours, and he is at liberty to amuse himself as he wishes for the few hours before the penance begins, The Master lets him choose between this evening of festivity and his own desire. His ghost is now down in the sub-cellar of the great John Ruszits fur company, where the women of four generations have brought their furs. This company was formed in 1851, and Astor died a few years before. The new Ruszits company must have felt a certain friendship for the old man, though there is no record of their ever dining together, for when the old baling press was about to be sold for junk, at auction, with the rest of the effects of the old fur house, they purchased it and had it set up in the sub-cellar and have carefully preserved it ever since. It is about thirty feet below the surface of the street. It is pretty sure that the present members of the family have no desire to keep it as an heirloom.