I
I knew it was coming long before it got there. Every symptom was in
sight. I had grown fidgety, and sat fearful of something overpoweringly
impending. Strange noises filled the house. Things generally, according
to their nature, severally creaked, soughed and moaned. There was a
ghost on the way. That was perfectly clear to an expert in uncanny
visitations of my wide experience, and I heartily wished it were not.
There was a time when I welcomed such visitors with open arms, because
there was a decided demand for them in the literary market, and I had
been able to turn a great variety of spooks into anywhere from three
thousand to five thousand words apiece at five cents a word, but now the
age had grown too sceptical to swallow ghostly reminiscence with any
degree of satisfaction. People had grown tired of hearing about Visions,
and desired that their tales should reek with the scent of gasoline,
quiver with the superfervid fever of tangential loves, and crash with
moral thunderbolts aimed against malefactors of great achievement and
high social and commercial standing. Wherefore it seemed an egregious
waste of time for me to dally with a spook, or with anything else, for
that matter, that had no strictly utilitarian value to one so
professionally pressed as I was, and especially at a moment like
that--it was Christmas morning and the hour was twenty-eight minutes
after two--when I was so busy preparing my Ode to June, and trying to
work out the details of a midsummer romance in time for the market for
such productions early in the coming January.
And right in the midst of all this pressure there rose up these beastly
symptoms of an impending visitation. At first I strove to fight them
off, but as the minutes passed they became so obsessively intrusive that
I could not concentrate upon the work in hand, and I resolved to have
it over with.
"Oh, well," said I, striking a few impatient chords upon my typewriting
machine, "if you insist upon coming, come, and let's have done with it."
I roared this out, addressing the dim depths of the adjoining apartment,
whence had risen the first dank apprehension of the uncanny something
that had come to pester me.
"This is my busy night," I went on, when nothing happened in response to
my summons, "and I give you fair warning that, however psychic I may be
now, I've got too much to do to stay so much longer. If you're going to
haunt, haunt!"
It was in response to this appeal that the thing first manifested
itself to the eye. It took the shape first of a very slight veil of
green fog, which shortly began to swirl slowly from the darkness of the
other room through the intervening portieres into my den. Once within,
it increased the vigor of its swirl, until almost before I knew it there
was spinning immediately before my desk something in the nature of a
misty maelstrom, buzzing around like a pin-wheel in action.
"Very pretty--very pretty indeed," said I, a trifle sarcastically,
refusing to be impressed, "but I don't care for pyrotechnics. I
suppose," I added flippantly, "that you are what might be called a
mince-pyrotechnic, eh?"
Whether it was the quality of my jest, or some other inward pang due to
its gyratory behavior, that caused it I know not, but as I spoke a deep
groan issued from the centre of the whirling mist, and then out of its
indeterminateness there was resolved the hazy figure of an angel--only,
she was an intensely modern angel. She wore a hobble-skirt instead of
the usual flowing robes of ladies of the supernal order, and her halo,
instead of hovering over her head as used to be the correct manner of
wearing these hard-won adornments, had perforce become a mere golden
fillet binding together the great mass of finger-curls and other
distinctly yellow capillary attractions that stretched out from the
back of her cerebellum for two or three feet, like a monumental
psyche-knot. I could hardly restrain a shudder as I realized the
theatric quality of the lady's appearance, and I honestly dreaded the
possible consequences of her visit. We live in a tolerably censorious
age, and I did not care to be seen in the company of such a peroxidized
vision as she appeared to be.
"I am afraid, madam," said I, shrinking back against the wall as she
approached--"I am very much afraid that you have got into the wrong
house. Mr. Slatherberry, the theatrical manager, lives next door."
She paid no attention to this observation, but, holding out a compelling
hand, bade me come along with her, her voice having about it all the
musical charm of an oboe suffering from bronchitis.
"Not in a year of Sundays I won't!" I retorted. "I am a respectable man,
a steady church-goer, a trustee for several philanthropic institutions,
and a Sunday-School teacher. I don't wish to be impolite, but really,
madam, rich as I am in reputation, I am too poor to be seen in public
with you."
"I am a spirit," she began.
"I'll take your word for it," I interjected, and I could see that she
told the truth, for she was entirely diaphanous, so much so indeed that
one could perceive the piano in the other room with perfect clarity
through her intervening shadiness. "It is, however, the unfortunate
fact that I have sworn off spirits."
"None the less," she returned, her eye flashing and her hand held forth
peremptorily, "you must come. It is your predestined doom."
My next remark I am not wholly clear about, but, as I remember it, it
sounded something like "I'll be doomed if I do!" whereupon she
threatened me.
"It is useless to resist," she said. "If you decline to come
voluntarily, I shall hypnotize you and force you to follow me. We have
need of you."
"But, my dear lady," I pleaded, "please have some regard for my
position. I never did any of you spirits any harm. I've treated every
visitor from the spirit-land with the most distinguished consideration,
and I feel that you owe it to me to be regardful of my good name.
Suppose you take a look at yourself in yonder looking-glass, and then
say if you think it fair to compel a decent, law-abiding man, of
domestic inclinations like myself, to be seen in public with--well, with
such a looking head of hair as that of yours."
My visitor laughed heartily.
"Oh, if that's all," she said, most amiably, "we can arrange matters in
a jiffy. Your wife possesses a hooded mackintosh, does she not? I think
I saw something of the kind hanging on the hat-rack as I floated in. I
will wear that if it will make you feel any easier."
"It certainly would," said I; "but see here--can't you scare up some
other cavalier to escort you to the haven of your desires?"
She fixed a sternly steady eye upon me for a moment.
"Aren't you the man who wrote the lines,
The World's a green and gladsome ball,
And Love's the Ruler of it all,
And Life's the chance vouchsafed to me
For Deeds and Gifts of Sympathy?
Didn't you write that?" she demanded.
"I did, madam," said I, "and I meant every word of it, but what of it?
Is that any reason why I should be seen on a public highway with a
lady-ghost of your especial kind?"
"Enough of your objections," she retorted firmly. "You are the person
for whom I have been sent. We have a case needing your immediate
attention. The only question is, will you come pleasantly and of your
own free will, or must I resort to extreme measures?"
These words were spoken with such determination that I realized that
further resistance was useless, and I yielded.
"All right," said I. "On your way. I'll follow."
"Good!" she cried, her face wreathing with a pleasant little nile-green
smile. "Get the mackintosh, and we'll be off. There's no time to lose,"
she added, as the clock in the tower on the square boomed out the hour
of three.
"What is this anyhow?" I demanded, as I helped her on with the
mackintosh and saw that the hood covered every vestige of that awful
coiffure. "Another case of Scrooge?"
"Sort of," she replied as, hooking her arm in mine, she led me forth
into the night.