"I thought that was rather a large family of girls for one man to have,"

rejoined Jones. "But see here--are you going to apologize or not?"

"I am not," I cried. "Never in this world nor in the next, you miserable handful of miasma!"

"Then, sir," said he, firmly, "I shall order a general strike for the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, and the strike will be on until you do apologize. Hereafter you will have to derive your inspiration from a contemplation of unskilled spooks, and, if I understand matters, you will find some difficulty in raising even these, for there is not one that I know of who doesn't belong to the union."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE THING FELL OVER LIMP"]

With that he vanished, and I sadly made my way back to my home. Once at my desk again, I turned my attention to the work I had promised you, and, to my chagrin, discovered that while I had in mind all the ingredients of a successful Christmas story, I could not write it, because Grand-Master-Spirit Jones had kept his word. One and all, my selected group of spooks went out on strike. They absolutely refused to pose unless I apologized to Jones, and by no persuasions, threats, or cajoling have I been able since to make them rise up before me, that I might present them to my readers with that degree of fidelity which I deem essential. My home, which was once a sort of spirit club, is now bare of even a semblance of a ghost worth writing up, and, conjure as I may, I cannot bring them back. The strike is on, and I am its victim.

But one miserable little specimen have I discovered since my interview with Jones, and so unskilled is he in the science of spooking that I give you my word he could not make a baby shiver on a dark night with the temperature twenty below zero and the wind howling like a madman without; and as for making hair stand on end, I tried him on a bit of hirsute from the tail of the timidest fawn in the Central Park zoo, and the thing fell over as limp as a strand from the silken locks of the Lorelei.

That, my dear sir, is why I cannot give you the story I have promised. I hope you will understand that the fault is not my own, but is the result of the evil tendency of the times, when the protective principle has reached the ultimate of tyrannous absurdity.

While Jones is at the head of the Amalgamated Brotherhood my case is hopeless, for I shall never apologize, unless he promises to restore to poor Mrs. Brockton and her two hundred and eighty-three pupils their former youthful gayety and prosperity, which, I understand upon inquiry, he is unable to do, since the needed patent reversible spook, who will restore blanched hair to its natural color and return the bloom of youth to furrowed cheeks, has not yet been invented; and I, the only person in the world who might have invented it, am powerless, for while the boycott hangs over my head, as you will see for yourself, I am bereft of the raw material for the conducting of the necessary experiments.

A Glance Ahead

A Glance Ahead

BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF A.D. 3568

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative J]

ust how it came about, or how he came to get so far ahead, Dawson never knew, but the details are, after all, unimportant. It is what happened, and not how it happened, that concerns us. Suffice it to say that as he waked up that Christmas morning, Dawson became conscious of a great change in himself. He had gone to bed the night before worn in body and weary in spirit. Things had not gone particularly well with him through the year. Business had been unwontedly dull, and his efforts to augment his income by an occasional operation on the Street had brought about precisely the reverse of that for which he had hoped. This morning, however, all seemed right again. His troubles had in some way become mere memories of a remote past. So far from feeling bodily fatigue, which had been a pressingly insistent sensation of his waking moments of late, he experienced a startling sense of absolute freedom from all physical limitation whatsoever. The room in which he slept seemed also to have changed. The pictures on the walls were not only not the same pictures that had been there when he had gone to bed the night before, but appeared, even as he watched them, to change in color and in composition, to represent real action rather than a mere semblance thereof.

"Humph!" he muttered, as a lithograph copy of "The Angelus" before him went through a process of enlivenment wherein the bell actually did ring, the peasants bowing their heads as in duty bound, and then resuming their work again. "I feel like a bird, but I must be a trifle woozy. I never saw pictures behave that way before." Then he tried to stretch himself, and observed, with a feeling of mingled astonishment and alarm, that he had nothing to stretch with. He had no legs, no arms--no body at all. He was about to indulge in an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of dismay, but there was no time for it, for, even as he began, a terrifying sound, as of rushing horses, over his bed attracted his attention. Investigation showed that this was caused by an engraving of Gerome's "Chariot Race," which hung on the wall above his pillow--an engraving which held the same peculiar attributes that had astonished him in the marvellous lithograph of "The Angelus" opposite. The thing itself was actually happening up there. The horses and chariots would appear in the perspective rushing madly along the course, and then, reaching the limits of the frame, would disappear, apparently into thin air, amid the shoutings and clamorings of the pictured populace. Three times it looked as if a ma.s.s of horseflesh, chariots, charioteers, and dust would be precipitated upon the bed, and if Dawson could have found his head there is no doubt whatever that he would have ducked it.

"I must get out of this," he cried. "But," he added, as his mind reverted to his disembodied condition, "how the deuce can I? What'll I get out with?"

The answer was instant. By the mere exercise of the impulse to be elsewhere the wish was gratified, and Dawson found himself opposite the bureau which stood at the far end of the room.

"Wonder how I look without a body?" he thought, as he ranged his faculties before the gla.s.s. But the mirror was of no a.s.sistance in the settlement of this problem, for, now that Dawson was mere consciousness only, the mirror gave back no evidence of his material existence.

"This is awful!" he moaned, as he turned and twisted his mind in a mad effort to imagine how he looked. "Where in thunder can I have left myself?"

As he spoke the door opened, and a man having the semblance of a valet entered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'GOOD-MORNING, MR. DAWSON'"]

"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson," said the valet--for that is what the intruder was--busying himself about the room. "I hope you find yourself well this morning?"

"I can't find myself at all this morning!" retorted Dawson. "What the devil does this mean? Where's my body?"

"Which one, sir?" the valet inquired, respectfully, pausing in his work.

"Which one?" echoed Dawson. "Wh--which--Oh, Lord! Excuse me, but how many bodies do I happen to have?" he added.

"Five--though a gentleman of your position, sir, ought to have at least ten, if I may make so bold as to speak, sir," said the valet. "Your golf body is pretty well used up, sir, you've played so many holes with it; and I really think you need a new one for evening wear, sir. The one you got from London is rather shabby, don't you think? It can't digest the simplest kind of a dinner, sir."

"The one I got from London, eh?" said Dawson. "I got a body in London, did I? And where's the one I got in Paris?" he demanded, sarcastically.

"You gave that to the coachman, sir," replied the valet. "It never fitted you, and, as you said yourself, it was rather gaudy, sir."

"Oh--I said that, did I? It was one of these loud, a.s.sertive, noisy bodies, eh?"

"Yes, sir, extremely so. None of your friends liked you in it, sir,"

said the valet. "Shall I fetch your lounging body, or will you wish to go to church this morning?" he continued.

"Bring 'em all in; bring every blessed bone of 'em," said Dawson. "I want to see how I look in 'em all; and bring me a morning paper."

"A what, sir?" asked the valet, apparently somewhat perplexed by the order.

"A morning paper, you idiot!" retorted Dawson, growing angry at the question. The man seemed to be so very stupid.

"I don't quite understand what you wish, sir," said the valet, apologetically.

"Oh, you don't, eh?" said Dawson, amazed as well as annoyed at the man's seeming lack of sense. "Well, I want to read the news--"

"Ah! Excuse me, Mr. Dawson," said the valet. "I did not understand. You want the _Daily Ticker_."

"Oh, do I?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dawson. "Well, if you know what I want better than I do, bring me what you think I want, and add to it a cup of coffee and a roll."

"I beg your pardon!" the valet returned.

"A cup of coffee and a roll!" roared Dawson. "Don't you know what a cup of coffee and a roll is or are? Just ask the cook, will you--"

"Ask the what, sir?" asked the valet, very respectfully.

"The cook! the cook! the cook!" screamed Dawson. His patience was exhausted by such manifest dulness.

"I--I'm sincerely anxious to please you, Mr. Dawson," said his man; "but really, sir, you speak so strangely this morning, I hardly know what to do. I--"

"Can't you understand that I'm hungry?" demanded Dawson.

"Oh!" said the valet. "Hungry, of course; yes, you should be at this time in the morning; but--er--your bodies have already been refreshed, sir; I have attended to all that as usual."

"Ah! You've attended to all that, eh? And I've breakfasted, have I?"

"Your bodies have all been fed, sir," said the valet.

"Never mind me, then," said Dawson. "Bring in those well-fed figures of mine, and let me look at 'em. Meanwhile, turn on the--er--_Daily Ticker_."