The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.Harper, Olive
Science
The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.
Harper, Olive
American fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories
Upon the tables were all the delicacies that one could have found at the
most perfectly appointed hotels. One table reminded the reporter of a
grand ball and house warming at the home of the late Ogden Goelet, where
there was not a piece of plate that was not duplicated here. Even the
napery looked the same and set the newspaper man to wondering whether
the ghosts did not borrow their plate and other things from the owners
for the occasion.
Above, the festoons of the incandescent lights in the form of flowers
shed their soft radiance, and also such perfume as would naturally
exhale from such blossoms. All was a pleasure to the eye and taste.
While the young man was standing at the head of the central table there
came the sound of a silvery note of music, such as might come from some
sort of a horn, but wonderfully sweet and clear. It appeared that this
was the signal for all the ghosts to take their places at the table. In
an amazingly short time they were seated.
The reporter found that he had not been included in the list of the
guests at the banquet. He felt a little vexed, though he really did not
feel hungry, and he had an idea that he did not want to eat with the
ghosts. He remembered a poem that he had read somewhere about ghosts
drinking out of skulls newly torn from the grave, and he smiled at the
contrast of these magnificent tables and viands.
The company was seated much as they would be at any other banquet, only
there were no waiters. Everyone was seated and they all waited on
themselves and each other, for, as he learned later the grave, like
love, levels all things. And this in spite of the class distinctions
mentioned before.
The ghosts were placed so that there was a lady and gentleman ghost side
by side. The gentlemen were as punctiliously polite as could be desired
and served the ladies with the greatest attention and assiduity.
At this juncture the Sociable Ghost came puffing up, much exercised, and
said: “My dear sir, I beg you to pardon my apparent neglect, but the fact
is there was a scrap between two famous old prize fighters, and you must
excuse me if I forgot everything else for the moment. Why, for a time I
really forgot that I was dead.”
The young man murmured that he was quite excusable, and was about to
disclaim any appetite, when the Sociable Ghost continued: “I say! It was
fine! The old fellow put the kid to sleep in about ten minutes. We had a
chance to learn more about good sparring than we ever knew before. I am
sure that I could give an uppercut now such as was never known in my
day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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