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.

was the worst kind of cheating,” said the old maid, taking up the man’s defense with such an air of having the right to champion his cause that his jaw dropped and he made a movement as if for flight. At this point quite a number of other ghosts who had gathered around them began to clap their hands, and one said: “Go in, little woman, and win. You will make a famous player in time.” The little belligerent hurriedly arose and said angrily: “If Mr. Fogg were only here, you would see what would happen. I won't stay here to be abused. I was lowering myself anyway.” “I think so, too,” said the old maid, “but it was by the way you have acted and not from your association with anyone here. We can spare you without sorrow.” By this time several more had gathered, and the ladies, seeing that they were attracting more attention than they desired, left the card room so suddenly that the newspaper man could not tell which way they went. Then he looked for the big ghost. He, too, had disappeared. So the reporter, left to himself, decided to go and find the leader and tell him the outcome of the affair. The young man thought that it might be that this affair was a form of punishment for former sins of omission or commission. But he must indeed have been a very bad man to deserve such a punishment as this, and he thought, too, that no other form of punishment could have been devised so well calculated to break a real gambler’s heart. He felt sorry for him. The reporter then went to the billiard room in search of the leader of the evening’s ceremonies. He was nowhere to be seen, and the young man stood watching the billiard players. He thought they all seemed to be playing in a perfunctory way, and there was no spirit in their play. Spectators stood about watching the progress of the games, and occasionally making remarks of approbation or derision. There were several men there whom the young man felt sure he had seen in life, but as none spoke to him he did not exactly like to press the acquaintance. One of the men that he felt so positive that he had known in life had been a rabid billiard player, and he neglected his family to such an extent that the young reporter’s mother once said that she hoped that when he died he would have to play billiards continually for a few millions of years as a just punishment. He was one of those who did not seem to be having a good time at all. Thinking that there might be things of more interest going on in other parts of the place, the young newspaper man went out to the main hall. There were things to see there. CHAPTER IV. THE MENDED GHOST Just as the reporter was going out of the room he noticed a man hobbling along in the most painful manner. The upper portion of his body was of enormous proportions. Even the big gambler would have appeared dwarfed beside this man. But, large as he was, he seemed somehow to be unaccountably dwarfed, and the commendable curiosity belonging to newspaper men caused him to try and discover the meaning of this state of affairs. As the man came hobbling along he tripped and would have fallen had not the young man caught him in his arms and held him up. The young man sustained him to a seat, and as he sank down in it he asked the ghost if there was anything else he could do, or be of any further assistance. The man, with the remarkable frankness that seemed to be a part and parcel of everything down here, replied: “No, nobody can't do nothing for me. It was all done when I was moved. And it was done up good and brown too. Nobody can't now make my legs whole again; no, not if they tried forever and forever. It is a shame, that is just what it is!” “Would you mind telling me what it is that has happened to you? I am sure it must be something unusual, and if I can help you I need not say how gladly I would try.” “No; you can’t help me, nor nobody else can't. But if you like I will tell you about it and maybe someone else may be spared if you put a piece in the paper about it.” This caused the reporter to break out in a cold sweat, for he now felt almost afraid to think. The ghost resumed: “I don't believe that nobody cares about us when we are once dead. I died and was buried in a vault under the old church that stands somewhere in Amity Street or close by. It may be gone now for all I know, for I haven't been there for a long time, and I don’t care if the old shebang is torn down, for it is to that that I owe my misery. Just look at me! I was a giant in my life, and stood seven feet in my stockings and was big according. But, when my time came I was sick and died like the weakest critter of them all. My folks paid the seven dollars to have me put into the receiving vault like the rest. I was pretty comfortable for the first year. The rule was that when new corpuses came in they must be put into the receiving vault the first year. Afterwards they were put into the back vault to make room for the new comers. There was shelves in the first one, and nobody couldn't crowd his neighbors, but in the back vault he was laid just one coffin on top of another, and nothing between them. At one time there was over five thousand corpuses under the church, but hardly anybody knew it. “The most of the coffins was old what was in the back vault, specially the lower line, and often when a new fellow was put in on top of the other lot the old coffins would mash down to nothing, and nothing of the body would be left, but the bones, and you can just guess how that squeezed. They kept on piling more and more until even with the crumbling old coffins there was no more room. Then the trustees or whoever it was that had the say, decided that we must all be moved to York Bay, and they set about moving us.” The reporter was deeply interested in this, and followed every word with the greatest care, for if it turned out to be true after he should be in a position to verify it, he intended to write it up for the benefit of humanity. The ghost accepted the chair which the young man brought him and continued his story. The mended ghost. “Them trustees thought that the sooner the job was done and the quieter they was about it the better it would be, and there was a whole bunch of fellows come to do it. They busted all the coffins what wasn't already busted, and they threw them into one heap, tore out all the linings, and took off the shrouds, that was left, and they threw them into one heap to sell for old rags. And all the plates and handles was took along with the rest. Then they brought a lot of common pine boxes. All the corpuses what wasn't claimed by the folks related to the corpus was just chucked into them, sometimes three and more in one. When they got three or four into one box and the lid wouldn't shut, they jumped on the top or jammed the bones down till it did. One woman had all her ribs broken and several others had their breastbones stove in to get enough of them into one box. There was one box fixed for three, and they chucked me in that head foremost. There was not half room enough, so my legs stuck out over two feet, and to make me fit in what did them dumb fools do but take a spade and just naturally chop off my feet right in the middle of the legs, and threw them in, and that is how I am in this fix. I tied them up the best I could, but to get a purchase I had to lap them as you see. They don’t feel solid. I expect to fall down every step I take. See how I had to fix them.” As he said this, the poor giant, shorn not of his strength but of his length, stuck out his offending feet. Surely enough they were chopped off as he said, for the marks of the sharp spade were still visible. The two ends of the bones to each leg had been, as he said, spliced by sliding them past each other and then tying them in place. They lapped at least twelve inches and that cut the man's stature down two whole feet. The worst feature about it was that the parts were not, and could not be made solid enough to make locomotion safe or comfortable. “If ever I get out of here alive,” thought the reporter, “I shall make it impossible for folks to kick me around like that. I shall have it fixed so that my body will be cremated and the ashes hidden so that nobody can ever find them. Then he spoke: “Your case is certainly a hard one, and I am surprised that the board of health ever allowed such things. Surely they must have known of it.” “Do you know, that affair was just the cause of the law that was passed making it necessary to have a Coroner’s inquest on every body, and all the things that them fellows had piled up to sell was took away and burnt. The Police Gazette took and printed pictures about it, and that is the first time that I remember of seeing big headlines, and they was all about ‘the awful desecration of the dead,’ and the trusteeses had to do a lot of things to keep the people from making a fuss. After that they was a little more careful what they done to the bodies, but it was too late to do anything for me. This here affair was in about 1830, but I am not sure to a day about the date, for naturally we don’t care so much about time when we are facing something else.” “Suppose I get you a pair of crutches?” said the young man with deep sympathy. The ghost said they could do no good, but that he was grateful that there was someone who showed a little feeling for one so long dead. He added that he hoped to get his release soon, as he had always been as good a man as he knew how to be, and when he did get his passport he would not need legs. Almost as soon as he had said this the poor ghost sat back in his chair and went to sleep. After several vain attempts to rouse him the young man wandered around a little. He found that while he had been in the card and billiard rooms the tables for the banquet had been prepared, and he looked around in surprised admiration. Each table was more than a hundred feet long, and there were so many of them that he soon gave up the attempt to count them all. The covers set on each table were seventy-five on each side with a seat of honor at the head. The table service was something wonderful. It recalled a day when he went to see the preparations for a grand banquet at the home of the late W. H. Vanderbilt. All along three sides of the large dining room there were glass cabinets reaching to the ceiling, and in these there were great silver plates, and platters, side dishes, tureens, punch bowls, tankards, pitchers and goblets of every description, each a perfect work of art after its kind. There were golden dishes of many shapes, all richly wrought and not one among them that was not worthy a close study for the beauty of form and fine goldsmith’s work. But not all of that mass of gold and silver put together could balance the value and workmanship upon even one of the articles which stood so thickly on these tables. Great pitchers of gold in the most exquisite rehausse and repousse work, filled to the brim with wine, stood all along the center of the tables, and around each were clustered golden goblets, according to the number of guests expected to be seated there. There were buffets in every direction, and quite a number of men had apparently found them already. Upon the tables were all the delicacies that one could have found at the most perfectly appointed hotels. One table reminded the reporter of a grand ball and house warming at the home of the late Ogden Goelet, where there was not a piece of plate that was not duplicated here. Even the napery looked the same and set the newspaper man to wondering whether the ghosts did not borrow their plate and other things from the owners for the occasion.