Told After SupperJerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)
General
Told After Supper
Jerome, Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka)
Ghost stories, English; Short stories
"Unless business was very different then from what it is now," said
my brother-in-law, "I don't see how a miller could very well have
saved anything, however much of a miser he might have been: at all
events, not enough to make it worth the trouble of looking for it."
Still, he could not altogether get rid of the idea of that
treasure.
One night he went to bed. There was nothing very extraordinary
about that, I admit. He often did go to bed of a night. What WAS
remarkable, however, was that exactly as the clock of the village
church chimed the last stroke of twelve, my brother-in-law woke up
with a start, and felt himself quite unable to go to sleep again.
Joe (his Christian name was Joe) sat up in bed, and looked around.
At the foot of the bed something stood very still, wrapped in
shadow.
It moved into the moonlight, and then my brother-in-law saw that it
was the figure of a wizened little old man, in knee-breeches and a
pig-tail.
In an instant the story of the hidden treasure and the old miser
flashed across his mind.
"He's come to show me where it's hid," thought my brother-in-law;
and he resolved that he would not spend all this money on himself,
but would devote a small percentage of it towards doing good to
others.
The apparition moved towards the door: my brother-in-law put on
his trousers and followed it. The ghost went downstairs into the
kitchen, glided over and stood in front of the hearth, sighed and
disappeared.
Next morning, Joe had a couple of bricklayers in, and made them
haul out the stove and pull down the chimney, while he stood behind
with a potato-sack in which to put the gold.
They knocked down half the wall, and never found so much as a four-
penny bit. My brother-in-law did not know what to think.
The next night the old man appeared again, and again led the way
into the kitchen. This time, however, instead of going to the
fireplace, it stood more in the middle of the room, and sighed
there.
"Oh, I see what he means now," said my brother-in-law to himself;
"it's under the floor. Why did the old idiot go and stand up
against the stove, so as to make me think it was up the chimney?"
They spent the next day in taking up the kitchen floor; but the
only thing they found was a three-pronged fork, and the handle of
that was broken.
On the third night, the ghost reappeared, quite unabashed, and for
a third time made for the kitchen. Arrived there, it looked up at
the ceiling and vanished.
"Umph! he don't seem to have learned much sense where he's been
to," muttered Joe, as he trotted back to bed; "I should have
thought he might have done that at first."
Still, there seemed no doubt now where the treasure lay, and the
first thing after breakfast they started pulling down the ceiling.
They got every inch of the ceiling down, and they took up the
boards of the room above.
They discovered about as much treasure as you would expect to find
in an empty quart-pot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account