Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookr what good I can do with it. One thing I have had in my mind for a good while, a desire born of things I have seen in and around newspaper offices and among other publishers. There is no room for old writers. The cry is always for new thoughts, fresh ideas and the finish and depth of thought which the elderly writers bring are nothing beside the sensational work of the young man. I have thought sometimes when I saw the reporters rushing off copy under high pressure only intent on getting something so sensational that it would make even the managing editor hold his breath, that that is not the kind of thing that ought to be written. The older men would hesitate to father such stuff, and because they have culture and conscience enough to do better and more worthy work no one will buy it. What I would like to do is to found a weekly paper where every contributor should be at least sixty years old. It might be considered slow by those accustomed to the sensational journals of today, but it would be good mental food, and it would also give the old men a chance to live." "In that way we might learn from the wisdom of age, in your paper, and be cheered by the sallies of youth in the others. Is that it?" "Exactly. But I see no chance of being able to do this, unless something now entirely unexpected happens." "I will try and see if I can't manage to interest some of the ghosts down here and we can possibly find the means to help you, for while we naturally are obliged to leave all wealth behind us, we may be able to locate hidden treasure for you or at least a mine." "I may never be able to carry out my plan, but this I can promise you, that if I ever see a body about to be moved I will try to see that it is comfortably fixed. And, I think I shall always be a little more careful what I do, and if you will allow me to say it, I shall always feel grateful to you for bringing me down here to-night. As long as I shall live and am able I shall make it a point to come here every anniversary of this night, bringing with me such creature comforts as I think may prove acceptable." "You said that before, but I thank you again," replied the ghost, at the same time taking his hand and shaking it with a fervor not to be expected in one so long dead, and in the world of spirits. By this time the assembly had begun to pass out of the underground place, and many of the ghosts-in fact all of the invited guests and tramp ghosts faded away, and the young man rubbed his eyes to see where they had gone. All that he could determine was that they had been there and were gone. They stood in the graveyard again, and the tramp ghost of Mr. Van Der Dam, the man whose leg the reporter had been the means of restoring, bid him a sorrowful good-bye. He shook his hand until the young man wished in his heart that the ghost were a little less demonstrative. He wished him the best of good fortunes, and saying that disappeared so suddenly and completely that it made him dizzy. He now became aware of a subdued murmur that passed all over the place. The sociable ghost stood near him by the side of the stone from under which he had exuded, so to speak, earlier in the night. He suddenly dropped to his knees, regardless of the pebbles which might have hurt the fleshless bones, and began rubbing the stone actively, while there were sounds of moaning and sobbing heard all over the place, and in the semi-darkness the young man saw forms crouching down by the different headstones. There was a sound like scouring and scraping, and then bright, livid lines of light quivered and trembled along the different tombstones in the form of words. At last the young man could not control his curiosity any longer and asked the ghost to tell him what it all meant. "Why just this. We have to come out of our graves every year and read our own epitaphs. Then we have to write what we deserved in truth. I assure you it is not a pleasant task, and we all wish that our sorrowing friends would only be so very kind as not to put anything but our names upon the stones. "Nobody cares anyhow what is on another's gravestone, and if any stop to read it it is simply to make fun of it. To read our own epitaphs and know how little we merit the extravagant praise there is one of our sharpest pangs. When we have shown a proper degree of shame and remorse over them, then we are allowed a short time in which we can endeavor to efface the lying records. We are given the privilege of scouring them with sandpaper and holystone. We hope that when the undeserved epitaph is all worn away we may be given our passports. "I suppose you have noticed how much sooner a gravestone wears away than a building stone? Now, here is a granite monument, and down there, across the street, is a building with the whole front of the same stone, quarried in the same year, some of it the same week. The house is as good as ever, but look at the stone in the monument. That tells the story. "See that woman down there trying to rub out the lies that her family put there. I wonder why it is that the survivors seem to feel constrained to put all that stuff on the headstone?" "I was just wondering," said the young man, "how it would be if any ghost should outlive his or her stone. I heard there was a great fire here once that destroyed many of them. And I know of a baker who took three or four stones from a cemetery to bake his bread on. The names were smoothed off, and I cannot exactly understand how it all is. Is it that the dead are held for the sins of their survivors in putting all the false, if fond, words there?" "No, not at all. If it were not this it would be something else." All this time the ghost was rubbing away at his own headstone with greater vigor than one could have expected, and as the young man looked at it the ghost said: "Pretty tough work, but I have succeeded in rubbing out nearly half this letter in only sixty years. This word is 'charitable,' and I never gave a cent to anybody in charity. I told you I would explain. Well, here is my epitaph, 'In memory of Captain, a pious and benevolent man, whose noble and upright character, calm demeanor and charitable heart endeared him to all who knew him. He passed away, leaving a sorrowing spouse to whom he was devoted, in the surety of a life above. He was captain of the _____, and engaged in the Liverpool and West India trade." This is a pretty mess to fix up over your head, now isn't it? Piety and the West India trade didn't go together in those days. Calm demeanor! Huh! They called me 'Old Hurricane.' And I was worse than a pirate, for I was in the slave trade. It is all over now, and the evil I did can't be undone, but though it may seem long, there will come a time when I-even I-shall have become fit for my passport. "But let me tell you, young man, and try and remember what I say, if the living only knew what the dead do there would be a deuced sight less wickedness in the world. You know that th |