Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others

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 cockneys in my day, and some of the most offensive varieties at that, but this spook absolutely outcocknifies 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 cockney 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 assistance 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 massacre 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 carcass 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?”

[Illustration:  “‘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-class 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 passed 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—­”

“What?” he put in, with a grin.  “Now just what will you do?  You’re clever, but I’m a ghost!”

[Illustration:  “I shall keep shoving you for exactly one year”]

“You wait and see!” said I, rushing angrily from the room.  It was a very weak retort, and I frankly admit that I am ashamed of it, but it was the best I had at hand at the moment.  My stock of repartee, like most men’s vitality, is at its lowest ebb at four o’clock in the morning.

For three or four hours I wandered aimlessly about the city, and then returned to my room, and found it deserted; but in the course of my peregrinations I had acquired a most consuming appetite.  Usually I eat very little breakfast, but this morning nothing short of a sixteen-course dinner could satisfy my ravening; so instead of eating my modest boiled egg, I sought the Savoy, and at nine o’clock entered the breakfast-room of that highly favored caravansary.  Imagine my delight, upon entering, to see, sitting near one of the windows, my newly made acquaintances of the steamer, the Travises of Boston, Miss Travis looking more beautiful than ever and quite as haughty, by whom I was invited to join them.  I accepted with alacrity, and was just about to partake of a particularly nice melon when who should walk in but that vulgar little spectre, hat jauntily placed on one side of his head, check-patterned trousers loud enough to wake the dead, and a green plaid vest about his middle that would be an indictable offence even on an American golf links.

“Thank Heaven they can’t see the brute!” I muttered as he approached.

“Hullo, old chappie!” he cried, slapping me on my back.  “Introduce me to your charming friends,” and with this he gave a horrible low -born smirk at Miss Travis, to whom, to my infinite sorrow, by some accursed miracle, he appeared as plainly visible as he was to me.

“Really,” said Mrs. Travis, turning coldly to me, “we—­we can’t, you know—­we—­Come, Eleanor.  We will leave this gentleman with his friend, and have our breakfast sent to our rooms.”

And with that they rose up and scornfully departed.  The creature then sat down in Miss Travis’s chair and began to devour her roll.

“See here,” I cried, finally, “what the devil do you mean?”

“Shove number two,” he replied, with his unholy smirk.  “Very successful, eh?  Werl, just you wait for number three.  It will be what you Americans call a corker.  By-bye.”

And with that he vanished, just in time to spare me the humiliation of shying a pot of coffee at his head.  Of course my appetite vanished with him, and my main duty now seemed to be to seek out the Travises and explain; so leaving the balance of my breakfast untasted, I sought the office, and sent my card up to Mrs. Travis.  The response was immediate.

“The loidy says she’s gone out, sir, and ain’t likely to be back,” remarked the top-lofty buttons, upon his return.

I was so maddened by this slight, and so thoroughly apprehensive of further trouble from the infernal shade, that I resolved without more ado to sneak out of England and back to America before the deadly blighting thing was aware of my intentions.  I immediately left the Savoy, and sought the office of the Green Star Line, secured a room on the steamer sailing the next morning—­the Digestic—­from Liverpool, and was about packing up my belongings, when it turned up again.

“Going away, eh?”

“Yes,” I replied, shortly, and then I endeavored to deceive him.  “I’ve been invited down to Leamington to spend a week with my old friend Dr. Liverton.”

“Oh, indeed!” he observed.  “Thanks for the address.  I will not neglect you during your stay there.  Be prepared for a shove that will turn your hair gray. Au revoir.”

And he vanished, muttering the address I had given him—­“Dr. Liverton, Leamington—­Dr. Liverton.”  To which he added, “I won’t forget that, not by a jugful.”

I chuckled softly to myself as he disappeared.  “He’s clever, but—­ there are others,” I said, delighted at the ease with which I had rid myself of him; and then eating a hearty luncheon, I took the train to Liverpool, where next morning I embarked on the Digestic for New York.