“Drat that toe! I nearly put it out of joint! I despise airs anyhow, and folks that think themselves too good to have just plain graves, and go and dig vaults and leave the slabs lying right in one’s path. If I had them aboard my ship I'd fix them. I'd stow them so close that when they got out they would think that a six-foot grave was an extended plain or a rolling prairie. I am afraid I shall have to tie that toe on, for I am sure it must be loose.” “Can I be of any assistance?” asked the reporter. “Nah, you can’t. Excuse me if I am short, but the damn thing hurts.” “I had an impression that after one is dead there could be no more bodily pain—that all suffering of the body is over,” hazarded the newspaper man. “Well, get rid of that impression in short order,” said the ghost as he sat down on the edge of the porch and struggled to tear off a piece of his shroud to tie up his toe. “We can suffer as long as there is anything material of us left to suffer, and also mentally as long as things go wrong that we left behind us when we died. Zounds! How that toe hurts!” The young man expressed his sympathy so warmly that that and perhaps somewhat less of pain calmed the ghost so that he took up his interrupted conversation. “If you use your eyes, young man, you may see here the present homes of many persons who have made the history of New York; yes, even of America. Many of the names are known in every household in the land, and streets have been named for most of them. Among them you will find the names of the founders of the old families, though to be sure, when I come to think of it, many of them have long since received their passports. You therefore will not see them tonight. But you may see some of the Van Dams, Kissams, Ludlows, Moores, Vestrys, Goelets, Desbrosses, Duanes, Worths, Lispenards, Jays, Hulls, Jones, Dominicks, Bleeckers, de Peysters, Murrays, Chambers, Watts, Kings, Munroes, Leroys and a whole lot more. I can’t remember them all just now. But, a man has got to be something before he gets a street named after him. Some of the old members of these families were not so rich as their descendants are today. There were no millionaires in my time in New York.” CHAPTER II. THE REPORTER MEETS THE LEADER OF THE FOUR HUNDRED The Sociable Ghost and the newspaper man continued their walk though the ghost still limped painfully. The reporter tried to bring himself to offer his arm for the ghost to lean upon, but somehow he could not seem to care to get too close to the living skeleton as he mentally considered him. Still he would not willingly have dispensed with his company. Finally the ghost took up the conversation where he had left it off.