demon, pertinaciously stuck to us; he familiarly linked his arm through
mine, and, suggesting coffee as rather a good thing to take after
dinner, took us over to the Cafe du Cardinal, where he, however, took
none of the Arabian beverage himself (there being only three cups placed
for us, as I distinctly saw), but drank an interminable succession of
_chasse-cafe_, utterly regardless of the divisional lines of the cognac
_carafon_. Part of these he would take neat, another portion he would
burn over sugar, gloating glaringly over the bluish flame, while gleams
of demoniac delight would flit across his ever-changing features. Jack
Hobson and Topp, I am sorry to say, joined him with a will in this
double-distilled debauch; and when I attempted to remonstrate with them,
they brazenly asserted that _I_, who am now speaking to you, who have
always, publicly and privately, declared brandy to be the worst of evil
spirits, had taken more of it, to my own cheek, as they slangily
expressed it, than the two of them together; and the waiter, who had
evidently been bribed by them, boldly maintained that _le vieux
monsieur_, as he had the impudence to call me, had swallowed _plus de
trois carafons de fine_; whereupon the fourth man, stepping up to him,
punched his head, which served him right. Now you will hardly believe me
when I tell you that at that very instant Topp forced me back into my
chair, while Jack Hobson pinioned my arms from behind, and the waiter
had the unblushing effrontery to stamp and rave at me like a maniac,
demanding satisfaction or compensation at my hands for the unprovoked
assault committed upon him by _me, coram populo_!--by _me_, who, I beg
to assure you, am the most peaceable man living, and am actually famed
for the mildness of my disposition and the sweetness and suavity of my
temper. And, would you believe it? everybody present, waiters and
guests, and my own two bosom-friends, joined in the conspiracy against
me, and I actually had to give the wretch of a waiter ten francs as a
plaster for his broken pate, and a salve for his wounded honor! Where
was the real culprit all this time, you ask me--the fourth man? Why, he
quietly stood by grinning, and they all and every one of them pretended
not to see him, though Topp and Jack Hobson next morning confessed to me
that they certainly had an indistinct consciousness of the presence
throughout of this miserable intruder.
"How we finished that night I remember not; nor could Jack Hobson or
Emmanuel Topp. All we could conscientiously stand by, if we were
questioned, is that we awoke next morning--the three of us--with some
slight swimming in our heads, and a hazy recollection of a gorgeous
dream of brilliant lights and sounds of music and revelry, and bright
visions of groves and grottoes, and dancing houris (or hussies, as moral
Jack Hobson calls the poor things), and a hot supper at a certain place
in the Passage des Princes, of which I think the name is Peter's.
"I will not tire your courteous patience by a detailed narrative of our
experiences day after day, during our fortnight's stay in Paris. Suffice
it to tell you that from that time forward to yesterday, when we left,
the _fourth man_, as we, by mutual consent, agreed to call the phantom
apparition, came in regularly to our dinner; with the dessert or a
little after; that he would constantly suggest a fresh supply of Cote
St. Jacques, Moulin-a-Vent, Beaune, Chambertin, Roederer Carte Blanche,
and a variety of other, generally rather more than less expensive,
wines--and that he somehow would manage to make us have them, too.
"Then he would sally forth with us to the cafe, where he would indulge
in irritating chaff of the waiters, and in slighting comments upon the
great French nation in general, and the Parisians in particular, and
upon their institutions and manners and customs.
"He would insist upon singing the Marseillaise; he would speak
disparagingly of the Emperor, whom he would irreverently call Lambert;
he would pass cutting and unsavory remarks upon the glorious system of
the night-carts; he would call down the judgment of Heaven upon the
devoted head of poor Mr. Haussmann; he would go up to some unhappy
sergent-de-ville, who might, however unwittingly, excite his ire, and
tell him a bit of his mind in English, with sarcastic allusions to his
cocket-hat and his toasting-fork, and polite inquiries after the health
of _ce cher_ Monsieur Lambert, or the whereabouts of _cet excellent_
Monsieur Godinot. The worst of the matter was that I suppose for the
reason that man is an imitative animal, a sort of [Greek: pithekos
myoros], or Monboddian monkey minus the tail--my two companions were,
somehow, always sure to join the wretch in his evil behavior, and to go
on just as bad as he did. No wonder, then, that we got into no end of
rows, and it is a marvel to me now, how ever we have managed to get off
with a whole skin to our bodies.
"He would insist upon taking us to Mabille, the Closerie des Lilas, and
the Chateaurouge, where he would indulge in the maddest pranks and
antics, and somehow lead us to join in the wildest dances, and make us
lift our legs as high as the highest lifter among the _habitues_, male
or female.
"One night, at about half-past two in the morning (_Hibernice_), he had
the cool assurance to drag us along with him to the then closed entrance
to the Passage des Princes, where he frantically shook the gate, and
insisted to the frightened concierge, who came running up in his
night-shirt, that Peter's must and ought to be open still, as _we_ had
not had our supper yet; and Topp and Jack Hobson, forsooth, must join in
the row. I have no distinct recollection of whether it was our phantom
guest or either of my companions that madly strove to detain the hastily
retreating form of the concierge by a desperate clutch at the tail of
his shirt; I only remember that the garment gave way in the struggle,
and that the unhappy functionary was reduced nearly altogether to the
primitive buff costume of the father of man in Paradise ere he had put
his teeth into that unlucky apple of which, the pips keep so
inconveniently sticking in poor humanity's gizzard to the present day.
And what I remember also to my cost is, that the sergent-de-ville, whom
the bereaved man's shouts of distress brought to the scene, fastened
upon _me_, the most inoffensive of mortals, for a compensation fine of
twenty francs, as if _I_ had been the culprit. And deuced glad we were,
I assure you, to get off without more serious damage to our pocket and
reputation than this, and a copious volley of _sacres ivrognes Anglais_,
fired at us by the wretched concierge and his friend of the police, who,
I am quite sure, went halves with him in the compensation. Ah! they are
a lawless set, these French.
"On another occasion we three went to the Exhibition, where we visited
one of our colonial departments, in company with several English
friends, and some French gentlemen appointed on the wine jury. We went
to taste a few samples of colonial wines. _He_ was not with us _then_.
Barely, however, had we uncorked a poor dozen bottles, which turned out
rather good for colonial, though a little raw and slightly uneducated,
when _who_ should stalk in but our fourth man, as jaunty and
unconcerned as ever. Well, _he_ fell to tasting, and he soon grew
eloquent in praise of the colonial juice, which he declared would, in
another twenty years' time, be fit to compete successfully with the best
French vintages. Of course, the French gentlemen with us could not stand
_this_; they spoke slightingly of the British colonial, and one of them
even went so far as to call it rotgut. I cannot say whether it was the
spirit of the uncompromising opinion thus pronounced, or the coarsely
indelicate way in which the judgment of our French friend was expressed,
that riled our phantom guest--enough, it brought him down in full force
upon the offender and his countrymen, with most fluent French
vituperation and an unconscionable amount of bad jokes and worse puns,
finishing up with a general address to them as members of the
_disgusting_ jury, instead of jury of _degustation_. Now, this I should
not have minded so much; for, I must confess, I felt rather nettled at
the national conceit and prejudice of these French. But the wretch, in
the impetuous utterance of his invective, must somehow--though I was not
aware of it at the time--have mimicked my gestures and imitated the very
tones and accent of my voice so closely as to deceive even some of my
English companions: or how else to account for the fact of their calling
me a noisy brawler and a pestilent nuisance? _me_, the gentlest and
mildest-spoken of mortals!
"Before our departure from London we had calculated our probable
expenses on a most liberal scale, and we had made comfortable provision
accordingly for a few weeks' stay in Paris. But with the additional
heavy burden of the franking of so copious an imbiber as our fourth man
thus unexpectedly thrown on our shoulders, it was no great wonder that
we should find our resources go much faster than we had anticipated; so
we had already been forcedly led to bethink ourselves of shortening our
intended stay in the French capital when a fresh exploit of the phantom
fourth, climaxing all his past misdeeds, brought matters to a crisis.
"It was the day before yesterday, the 4th of September. We had been
dining at Marigny, and dancing at Mabille. Our eccentric guest had come
in, as usual, with the champagne, and had of course, after dinner, taken
us over to the enchanted gardens. We were all very jolly. _He_ suggested
supper at the Cascades, in the Bois de Boulogne. We chartered a _fiacre_
to take us there and back. We supped rather copiously. _He_ somehow made
our coachman drunk, and took upon himself to drive us home. Need I tell
you that he upset us in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, and that we had to
walk it, and pretty fast too? It was a mercy there were no bones broken.
"Well, as we were walking along, just barely recovering from the shock
of the accident, he suddenly took some new whim into his confounded
noddle. Nothing would do for him but he must drag us along with him to
the great entrance of the Elysee Napoleon (which erst was, and maybe is
soon likely to be once more, the Elysee Bourbon), where he had the
brazen impudence to claim admittance, as the Emperor, he pretended, had
been graciously pleased to offer us the splendid hospitality of that
renowned mansion. What further happened here, neither I nor either of
my friends can tell. Our recollections from this period till next
morning are doubtful and indistinct. All we can state for certain is,
that yesterday morning we awoke, the three of us, in a most wretched
state, in a strange, nasty place. We learn soon after from a gentleman
in a cocked hat, who came to visit us on business, that the imperial
hospitality which we had claimed last night had indeed been extended to
us--only in the _violon_, instead of the Elysee. Our phantom guest was
gone: he would alway, somehow sneak away in the morning, when there was
nothing left for him to drink--the guzzling villain!
"The gentleman in the cocked-hat pressingly invited us to pay a visit to
the Commissaire du Quartier. That formidable functionary received us
with the customary French-polished veneer of urbanity which, as a rule,
constitutes the _suaviter in modo_ of the higher class of Gallic
officials. He read us a severe lecture, however, upon the alleged
impropriety of our conduct; and when I ventured to protest that it was
not to us the blame ought to be imputed, but to the _quatrieme_, he
mistook my meaning, and, ere I could explain myself, he cut me short
with a polite remark that the French used the cardinal instead of the
ordinal numbers in stating the days of the month, with the exception of
the first, and that he had had too much trouble with our countrymen (he
took us for Yankees!) on the 4th of July, to be disposed to look with an
over-lenient eye upon the vagaries we had chosen to commit on the 4th of
September, which he supposed was another great national day with us. He
would, however, let us off this time with a simple reprimand, upon
payment of one hundred francs, compensation for damage done to the
coach--drunken cabby having turned up, of course, to testify against us.
Well, we paid the money, and handed the worthy magistrate twenty francs
besides, for the benefit of the poor, by way of acknowledgment for the
imperial hospitality we had enjoyed. We were then allowed to depart in
peace.
"Now, you'll hardly believe it, I dare say, but it is the truth
notwithstanding, that we three, who have been fast friends for years,
actually began to quarrel among ourselves now, mutually imputing to one
another the blame of all our misadventures and misfortunes since our
arrival in Paris, while yet we clearly knew and felt, each and every of
us, that it was all the doings of that phantom fourth.
"One thing, however, we all agreed to do--to leave Paris by the first
train.
"To fortify ourselves for the coming journey, we went to indulge in the
luxury of a farewell breakfast at Desire Beaurain's. Of course we
emptied a few bottles to our reconciliation. I do not exactly remember
how many, but this I _do_ remember, that our irrepressible incubus
walked in again, and took his place in the midst of us rather sooner
even than he had been wont to do; and he never left us from that time to
the moment of our landing at Dover harbor, when he took his, I hope and
trust final, departure with a ghastly grin.
"I dare say you must have thought us a most noisy and obstreperous lot:
well, with my hand on my heart, I can assure you, on my conscience,
that a quieter and milder set of fellows than us three you are not
likely to find on this or the other side the Channel. But for that
mysterious phantom fourth----"
Here the whistle sounded, and the guard came up to us with a hurried,
"Now then, gents, take your seats, please; train is off in half a
minnit!"
"What can have become of Topp and Jack Hobson?" muttered my new friend,
looking around him with eager scrutiny. "I should not wonder if they
were still refreshing." And he started off in the direction of the
refreshment-room.
I took my seat. Immediately after the train whirled off. I cannot say
whether the three were left behind; all I know is that I did not see
them get out at London Bridge.
Remembering, however, that the appalling secret of the supernatural
visitation which had thus harassed my three fellow-travellers had been
confided to me under the impression that I might be likely to find a
solution of the mystery, I have ever since deeply pondered thereon.
Shallow thinkers, and sneerers uncharitably given, may, from a
consideration of the times, places, and circumstances at and under which
the abnormal phenomena here recited were stated to have been observed,
be led to attribute them simply to the promptings and imaginings of
brains overheated by excessive indulgence in spirituous liquors. But I,
striving to be mindful always of the great scriptural injunction to
judge not, lest we be judged, and opportunely remembering my friend
O'Kweene's learned dissertation above alluded to, feel disposed to
pronounce the apparition of the phantom of the fourth man, and all the
sayings, doings, and demeanings of the same, to have been simply so many
visible and palpable outward manifestations of the inner consciousness
of the souls of the three, and more notably of that of the elderly
senior of the party, in a succession of vino-alcoholic trances.
My friend O'Kweene is, of course, welcome to such credit as may attach
to this attempted solution of mine.
THE SPIRIT'S WHISPER.
Yes, I have been haunted!--haunted so fearfully that for some little
time I thought myself insane. I was no raving maniac; I mixed in society
as heretofore, although perhaps a trifle more grave and taciturn than
usual; I pursued my daily avocations; I employed myself even on literary
work. To all appearance I was one of the sanest of the sane; and yet all
the while I considered myself the victim of such strange delusions that,
in my own mind, I fancied my senses--and one sense in particular--so far
erratic and beyond my own control that I was, in real truth, a madman.
How far I was then insane it must be for others, who hear my story, to
decide. My hallucinations have long since left me, and, at all events, I
am now as sane as I suppose most men are.
My first attack came on one afternoon when, being in a listless and an
idle mood, I had risen from my work and was amusing myself with
speculating at my window on the different personages who were passing
before me. At that time I occupied apartments in the Brompton Road.
Perhaps, there is no thoroughfare in London where the ordinary
passengers are of so varied a description or high life and low life
mingle in so perpetual a medley. South-Kensington carriages there jostle
costermongers' carts; the clerk in the public office, returning to his
suburban dwelling, brushes the laborer coming from his work on the
never-ending modern constructions in the new district; and the ladies of
some of the surrounding squares flaunt the most gigantic of _chignons_,
and the most exuberant of motley dresses, before the envying eyes of the
ragged girls with their vegetable-baskets.
There was, as usual, plenty of material for observation and conjecture
in the passengers, and their characters or destinations, from my window
on that day. Yet I was not in the right cue for the thorough enjoyment
of my favorite amusement. I was in a rather melancholy mood. Somehow or
other, I don't know why, my memory had reverted to a pretty woman whom I
had not seen for many years. She had been my first love, and I had loved
her with a boyish passion as genuine as it was intense. I thought my
heart would have broken, and I certainly talked seriously of dying, when
she formed an attachment to an ill-conditioned, handsome young
adventurer, and, on her family objecting to such an alliance, eloped
with him. I had never seen the fellow, against whom, however, I
cherished a hatred almost as intense as my passion for the infatuated
girl who had flown from her home for his sake. We had heard of her being
on the Continent with her husband, and learned that the man's shifty
life had eventually taken him to the East. For some years nothing more
had been heard of the poor girl. It was a melancholy history, and its
memory ill-disposed me for amusement.
A sigh was probably just escaping my lips with the half-articulated
words, "Poor Julia!" when my eyes fell on a man passing before my
window. There was nothing particularly striking about him. He was tall,
with fine features, and a long, fair beard, contrasting somewhat with
his bronzed complexion. I had seen many of our officers on their return
from the Crimea look much the same. Still, the man's aspect gave me a
shuddering feeling, I didn't know why. At the same moment, a whispering,
low voice uttered aloud in my ear the words, "It is he!" I turned,
startled; there was no one near me, no one in the room. There was no
fancy in the sound; I had heard the words with painful distinctness. I
ran to the door, opened it--not a sound on the staircase, not a sound in
the whole house--nothing but the hum from the street. I came back and
sat down. It was no use reasoning with myself; I had the ineffaceable
conviction that I had heard the voice. Then first the idea crossed my
mind that I might be the victim of hallucinations. Yes, it must have
been so, for now I recalled to mind that the voice had been that of my
poor lost Julia; and at the moment I heard it I had been dreaming of
her. I questioned my own state of health. I was well; at least I had
been so, I felt fully assured, up to that moment. Now a feeling of
chilliness and numbness and faintness had crept over me, a cold sweat
was on my forehead. I tried to shake off this feeling by bringing back
my thoughts to some other subject. But, involuntarily as it were, I
again uttered the words, "Poor Julia!" aloud. At the same time a deep
and heavy sigh, almost a groan, was distinctly audible close by me. I
sprang up; I was alone--quite alone. It was, once more, an
hallucination.
By degrees the first painful impression wore away. Some days had passed,
and I had begun to forget my singular delusion. When my thoughts aid
revert to it, the recollection was dismissed as that of a ridiculous
fancy. One afternoon I was in the Strand, coming from Charing Cross,
when I was once more overcome by that peculiar feeling of cold and
numbness which I had before experienced. The day was warm and bright and
genial, and yet I positively shivered. I had scarce time to interrogate
my own strange sensations when a man went by me rapidly. How was it that
I recognized him at once as the individual who had only passed my window
so casually on that morning of the hallucination? I don't know, and yet
I was aware that this man was the tall, fair passer-by of the Brompton
Road. At the same moment the voice I had previously heard whispered
distinctly in my ear the words, "Follow him!" I stood stupefied. The
usual throngs of indifferent persons were hurrying past me in that
crowded thoroughfare, but I felt convinced that not one of these had
spoken to me. I remained transfixed for a moment. I was bent on a matter
of business in the contrary direction to the individual I had remarked,
and so, although with unsteady step, I endeavored to proceed on my way.
Again that voice said, still more emphatically, in my ear, "Follow him!"
I stopped involuntarily. And a third time, "Follow him!" I told myself
that the sound was a delusion, a cheat of my senses, and yet I could not
resist the spell. I turned to follow. Quickening my pace, I soon came up
with the tall, fair man, and, unremarked by him, I followed him. Whither
was this foolish pursuit to lead me? It was useless to ask myself the
question--I was impelled to follow.
I was not destined to go very far, however. Before long the object of my
absurd chase entered a well-known insurance-office. I stopped at the
door of the establishment. I had no business within, why should I
continue to follow? Had I not already been making a sad fool of myself
by my ridiculous conduct? These were my thoughts as I stood heated by my
quick walk. Yes, heated; and yet, once more, came the sudden chill. Once
more that same low but now awful voice spoke in my ear: "Go in!" it
said. I endeavored to resist the spell, and yet I felt that resistance
was in vain. Fortunately, as it seemed to me, the thought crossed my
mind that an old acquaintance was a clerk in that same insurance-office.
I had not seen the fellow for a great length of time, and I never had
been very intimate with him. But here was a pretext; and so I went in
and inquired for Clement Stanley. My acquaintance came forward. He was
very busy, he said. I invented, on the spur of the moment, some excuse
of the most frivolous and absurd nature, as far as I can recollect, for
my intrusion.
"By the way," I said, as I turned to take my leave, although my question
was "by the way" of nothing at all, "who was that tall, fair man who
just now entered the office?"
"Oh, that fellow?" was the indifferent reply; "a Captain Campbell, or
Canton, or some such name; I forget what. He is gone in before the
board--insured his wife's life--and she is dead; comes for a settlement,
I suppose."
There was nothing more to be gained, and so I left the office. As soon
as I came without into the scorching sunlight, again the same feeling of
cold, again the same voice--"Wait!" Was I going mad? More and more the
conviction forced itself upon me that I was decidedly a monomaniac
already. I felt my pulse. It was agitated and yet not feverish. I was
determined not to give way to this absurd hallucination; and yet, so far
was I out of my senses, that my will was no longer my own. Resolved as I
was to go, I listened to the dictates of that voice and waited. What was
it to me that this Campbell or Canton had insured his wife's life, that
she was dead, and that he wanted a settlement of his claim? Obviously
nothing; and I yet waited.
So strong was the spell on me that I had no longer any count of time. I
had no consciousness whether the period was long or short that I stood
there near the door, heedless of all the throng that passed, gazing on
vacancy. The fiercest of policemen might have told me to "move on," and
I should not have stirred, spite of all the terrors of the "station."
The individual came forth. He paid no heed to me. Why should he? What
was I to him? This time I needed no warning voice to bid me follow. I
was a madman, and I could not resist the impulses of my madness. It was
thus, at least I reasoned with myself. I followed into Regent Street.
The object of my insensate observation lingered, and looked around as if
in expectation. Presently a fine-looking woman, somewhat extravagantly
dressed, and obviously not a lady, advanced toward him on the pavement.
At the sight of her he quickened his step, and joined her rapidly. I
shuddered again, but this time a sort of dread was mingled with that
strange shivering. I knew what was coming, and it came. Again that voice
in my ear. "Look and remember!" it said. I passed the man and woman as
they stopped at their first meeting!
"Is all right, George?" said the female.
"All right, my girl," was the reply.