"What I hope niver to see again, sorr," said Barney, compressing his lips solemnly. "_Six impty chairs,_ sorr, wid six segyars as hoigh up from the flure as a man"s mout", puffin" and a-blowin" out shmoke loike a chimbley! An" ivery oncet in a whoile the segyars would go down kind of an" be tapped loike as if wid a finger of a shmoker, and the ashes would fall off onto the flure!"
"Well?" said I. "Go on. What next?"
"I wanted to run awaa, sorr, but I shtood rutted to the shpot wid th" surproise I had on me, until foinally ivery segyar was burnt to a shtub and trun into the foireplace, where I found "em the nixt mornin" when I came to clane up, provin" ut wasn"t ony dhrame I"d been havin"."
I arose from my chair and paced the room for two or three minutes, wondering what I could say. Of course the man was lying, I thought.
Then I pulled myself together.
"Barney," I said, severely, "what"s the use? Do you expect me to believe any such c.o.c.k-and-bull story as that?"
"No, sorr," said he. "But thim"s the facts."
"Do you mean to say that this house of mine is haunted?" I cried.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""SIX IMPTY CHAIRS, SORR""]
"I don"t know," said Barney, quietly. "I didn"t t"ink so before."
"Before? Before what? When?" I asked.
"Whin you was writin" shtories about ut, sorr," said Barney, respectfully. "You"ve had a black horse-hair sofy turn white in a single noight, sorr, for the soight of horror ut"s witnessed. You"ve had the hair of your own head shtand on ind loike tinpenny nails at what you"ve seen here in this very room, yourself, sorr. You"ve had ghosts doin" all sorts of t"ings in the shtories you"ve been writin"
for years, and _you"ve always swore they was thrue, sorr_. I didn"t believe "em when I read "em, but whin I see thim segyars bein"
shmoked up before me eyes by invishible t"ings, I sez to meself, sez I, the boss ain"t such a dommed loiar afther all. I"ve follyd your writin", sorr, very careful and close loike; an I don"t see how, afther the tales you"ve told about your own experiences right here, you can say consishtently that this wan o" mine ain"t so!"
"But why, Barney," I asked, to confuse him, "when a thing like this happened, didn"t you write and tell me?"
Barney chuckled as only one of his species can chuckle.
"Wroite an" tell ye?" he cried. "Be gorry, sorr, if I could wroite at all at all, ut"s not you oi"d be wroitin" that tale to, but to the edithor of the paper that you wroite for. A tale loike that is wort" tin dollars to any man, eshpecially if ut"s thrue. But I niver learned the art!"
And with that Barney left me overwhelmed. Subsequently I gave him the ten dollars which I think his story is worth, but I must confess that I am in a dilemma. After what I have said about my supernatural guests, I cannot discharge Barney for lying, but I"ll be blest if I can quite believe that his story is accurate in every respect.
If there should happen to be among the readers of this tale any who have made a sufficiently close study of the habits of hired men and ghosts to be able to shed any light upon the situation, nothing would please me more than to hear from them.
I may add, in closing, that Barney has resumed smoking.
THE EXORCISM THAT FAILED
I--A JUBILEE EXPERIENCE
It has happened again. I have been haunted once more, and this time by the most obnoxious spook I have ever had the bliss of meeting. He is homely, squat, and excessively vulgar in his dress and manner. I have met c.o.c.kneys in my day, and some of the most offensive varieties at that, but this spook absolutely outc.o.c.knifies them all, and the worst of it is I can"t seem to rid myself of him. He has pursued me like an avenging angel for quite six months, and every plan of exorcism that I have tried so far has failed, including the receipt given me by my friend Peters, who, next to myself, knows more about ghosts that any man living. It was in London that I first encountered the vulgar little creature who has made my life a sore trial ever since, and with whom I am still coping to the best of my powers.
Starting out early in the morning of June 21, last summer, to witness the pageant of her Majesty Queen Victoria"s Diamond Jubilee, I secured a good place on the corner of Northumberland Avenue and Trafalgar Square. There were two rows of people ahead of me, but I did not mind that. Those directly before me were short, and I could easily see over their heads, and, furthermore, I was protected from the police, who in London are the most dangerous people I have ever encountered, not having the genial ways of the Irish bobbies who keep the New York crowds smiling; who, when you are pushed into the line of march, merely punch you in a ticklish spot with the end of their clubs, instead of smashing your hair down into your larynx with their sticks, as do their London prototypes.
It was very comforting to me, having witnessed the pageant of 1887, when the Queen celebrated her fiftieth anniversary as a potentate, and thereby learned the English police system of dealing with crowds, to know that there were at least two rows of heads to be split open before my turn came, and I had formed the good resolution to depart as soon as the first row had been thus treated, whether I missed seeing the procession or not.
I had not been long at my post when the crowds concentrating on the line of march, coming up the avenue from the Embankment, began to shove intolerably from the rear, and it was as much as I could do to keep my place, particularly in view of the fact that the undersized c.o.c.kney who stood in front of me appeared to offer no resistance to the pressure of my waistcoat against his narrow little back. It seemed strange that it should be so, but I appeared, despite his presence, to have nothing of a material nature ahead of me, and I found myself bent at an angle of seventy-five degrees, my feet firmly planted before me like those of a balky horse, restraining the onward tendency of the mob back of me.
Strong as I am, however, and stubborn, I am not a stone wall ten feet thick at the base, and the pressure brought to bear upon my poor self was soon too great for my strength, and I gradually encroached upon my unresisting friend. He turned and hurled a few remarks at me that are not printable, yet he was of no more a.s.sistance in withstanding the pressure than a marrowfat pea well cooked would have been.
"I"m sorry," I said, apologetically, "but I can"t help it. If these policemen would run around to the rear and ma.s.sacre some of the populace who are pushing me, I shouldn"t have to shove you."
"Well, all I"ve got to say," he retorted, "is that if you don"t keep your carca.s.s out of my ribs I"ll haunt you to your dying day."
"If you"d only put up a little backbone yourself you"d make it easier for me," I replied, quite hotly. "What are you, anyhow, a jelly-fish or an India-rubber man?" He hadn"t time to answer, for just as I spoke an irresistible shove from the crowd pushed me slap up against the man in the front row, and I was appalled to find the little fellow between us bulging out on both sides of me, crushed longitudinally from top to toe, so that he resembled a paper doll before the crease is removed from its middle, three-quarters open.
"Great heavens!" I muttered. "What have I struck?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""L LUL LET ME OUT!" HE GASPED "]
"L-lul-let me out!" he gasped. "Don"t you see you are squ-queezing my figure out of shape? Get bub-back, blank it!"
"I can"t," I panted. "I"m sorry, but--"
"Sorry be hanged!" he roared. "This is my place, you idiot--"
This was too much for me, and in my inability to kick him with my foot I did it with my knee, and then, if I had not been excited, I should have learned the unhappy truth. My knee went straight through him and shoved the man ahead into the coat-tails of the bobbie in front. It was fortunate for me that it happened as it did, for the front-row man was wrathful enough to have struck me; but the police took care of him; and as he was carried away on a stretcher, the little jelly-fish came back into his normal proportions, like an inflated India-rubber toy.
"What the deuce are you, anyhow?" I cried, aghast at the spectacle.
"You"ll find out before you are a year older!" he wrathfully answered. "I"ll show you a shoving trick or two that you won"t like, you blooming Yank!"
It made me excessively angry to be called a blooming Yank. I am a Yankee, and I have been known to bloom, but I can"t stand having a low-cla.s.s Britisher apply that term to me as if it were an opprobrious thing to be, so I tried once more to kick him with my knee. Again my knee pa.s.sed through him, and this time took the policeman himself in the vicinity of his pistol-pocket. The irate officer turned quickly, raised his club, and struck viciously, not at the little creature, but at me. He didn"t seem to see the jelly -fish. And then the horrid truth flashed across my mind. The thing in front of me was a ghost--a miserable relic of some bygone pageant, and visible only to myself, who have an eye to that sort of thing.
Luckily the bobbie missed his stroke, and as I apologized, telling him I had St. Vitus"s dance and could not control my unhappy leg, accompanying the apology with a half sovereign--both of which were accepted--peace reigned, and I shortly had the bliss of seeing the whole sovereign ride by--that is, I was told that the lady behind the parasol, which obscured everything but her elbow, was her Majesty the Queen.
Nothing more of interest happened between this and the end of the procession, although the little spook in front occasionally turned and paid me a compliment which would have cost any material creature his life. But that night something of importance did happen, and it has been going on ever since. The unlovely creature turned up in my lodgings just as I was about to retire, and talked in his rasping voice until long after four o"clock. I ordered him out, and he declined to go. I struck at him, but it was like hitting smoke.
"All right," said I, putting on my clothes. "If you won"t get out, I will."
"That"s exactly what I intended you to do," he said. "How do you like being shoved, eh? Yesterday was the 21st of June. I shall keep shoving you along, even as you shoved me, for exactly one year."
"Humph!" I retorted. "You called me a blooming Yank yesterday. I am.
I shall soon be out of your reach in the great and glorious United States."
"Oh, as for that," he answered, calmly, "I can go to the United States. There are steamers in great plenty. I could even get myself blown across on a gale, if I wanted to--only gales are not always convenient. Some of "em don"t go all the way through, and connections are hard to make. A gale I was riding on once stopped in mid-ocean, and I had to wait a week before another came along, and it landed me in Africa instead of at New York."
"Got aboard the wrong gale, eh?" said I, with a laugh.
"Yes," he answered.
"Didn"t you drown?" I cried, somewhat interested.
"Idiot!" he retorted. "Drown? How could I? You can"t drown a ghost!"
"See here," said I, "if you call me an idiot again, I"ll--I"ll--"