Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Book830, but I am not sure to a day about the date, for naturally we don't care so much about time when we are facing something else." "Suppose I get you a pair of crutches?" said the young man with deep sympathy. The ghost said they could do no good, but that he was grateful that there was someone who showed a little feeling for one so long dead. He added that he hoped to get his release soon, as he had always been as good a man as he knew how to be, and when he did get his passport he would not need legs. Almost as soon as he had said this the poor ghost sat back in his chair and went to sleep. After several vain attempts to rouse him the young man wandered around a little. He found that while he had been in the card and billiard rooms the tables for the banquet had been prepared, and he looked around in surprised admiration. Each table was more than a hundred feet long, and there were so many of them that he soon gave up the attempt to count them all. The covers set on each table were seventy-five on each side with a seat of honor at the head. The table service was something wonderful. It recalled a day when he went to see the preparations for a grand banquet at the home of the late W. H. Vanderbilt. All along three sides of the large dining room there were glass cabinets reaching to the ceiling, and in these there were great silver plates, and platters, side dishes, tureens, punch bowls, tankards, pitchers and goblets of every description, each a perfect work of art after its kind. There were golden dishes of many shapes, all richly wrought and not one among them that was not worthy a close study for the beauty of form and fine goldsmith's work. But not all of that mass of gold and silver put together could balance the value and workmanship upon even one of the articles which stood so thickly on these tables. Great pitchers of gold in the most exquisite rehausse and repousse work, filled to the brim with wine, stood all along the center of the tables, and around each were clustered golden goblets, according to the number of guests expected to be seated there. There were buffets in every direction, and quite a number of men had apparently found them already. 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. "But, you really must join us. I had a seat reserved for you at this table where you can see everything that is going on, and where you will have a chance to learn many things of which you never heard. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce a friend of mine, who is not yet of us, but whom I have invited to pass the evening with us. I hope you will make him welcome for my sake until you learn to like him for his own." There was a confused murmur intended as a welcome accompanied with bows from all the guests at this table. The newspaper man saw that all these ghosts were really hungry, and ate with genuine appetite. The wine was poured out in generous quantities, and they drank as if exceedingly thirsty, and soon the great hall rang with laughter, and lively sallies of wit and anecdote. He tried so hard to listen to them all that to his intense chagrin he found afterward that he could not remember half of it and what he did recollect was so disjointed that it was worse than none. The ghost seemed to think it a great joke that one not dead should be among them, and many witticisms were launched at him on account of his too evident curiosity. The good-natured ghost told him that he probably would not get much nourishment out of what they gave him, and that he was very sorry that he could not offer him something to take home to the children, as was the custom when he was young. He told how he cried when his parents went anywhere and failed to bring him home some of the good things they had had at the party. The young man answered in the same strain and said that he was not hungry, and even if he were the feast of reason and flow of soul would more than satisfy him. While the guests were eating, the young stranger within their gates was observing with great interest everything about him. There was quite as wide a difference in the way the ghosts acted as among the living, and he saw some shoveling the food into their fleshless jaws with knives. He remarked that some who ate with their knives tried to give something of grace to the movement by turning the blade outward, and these ghosts held their spoons with the points to the mouths and to render this more elegant they stuck one li |