“Yes,” he said, as I stepped out into the semi-darkness of the causeway, “it frightens some people, but it never frightens me, because I know that the only consolation possible for these unhappy spirits is to lie next to, or to come in contact with, the bodies of those whose spirits are walking and talking with their fond ones in distant China.”
Whilst I was at York Road I became acquainted with an Irish doctor, whom I will call Flynn. He ran a surgery not far from King Ho’s house. Flynn belonged to a famous secret society, whose fundamental object was to carry on a doctrine of surreptitious hatred to England and all things English. Though I had no sympathy with such a society—for I have always held the opinion that, however badly England behaved to Ireland in the past, the majority of the English people of to-day are only too anxious to act fairly to her, and therefore it is better to let bygones be bygones—I found Flynn a very original and entertaining character. All his patients were either Irish or of foreign extraction, and whenever any English person came to the surgery, he flatly refused to attend them.
One evening, when I was sitting chatting with him in front of a blazing peat fire—Flynn would never burn English coal—two Swedish engineers came into the surgery, and Flynn, who, for some peculiar reason, was particularly partial to the Swedes, asked them to join us at supper. The meal certainly was not in the approved style of the West End, nor, perhaps, would it have appealed to the nouveau riche; for there was no snowy tablecloth, no serviettes, no champagne, no liqueurs; it consisted of boiled beef, suet dumplings, potatoes—boiled in their skins, of course—and plenty, yes, plenty, of stout and whiskey; and it was very welcome to the four hungry, healthy men, who did ample justice to it. After we had finished, and pipes were produced, I brought up the subject of ghosts—never very far from my mind—and one of the Swedes laughed.
“Ghosts,” he said, “there are no such things. Neither ghosts nor fairies. I believe in nothing. There is no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell. When we die, we die—there is no future life whatever.”
“Let’s have a séance,” Flynn said, “and see if we can’t convince him. I have the skeleton of a murderer in the room overhead. I will fetch it down, and it shall sit round the table with us.”
“All right!” the sceptical Swede, whose name was Nielssen, said. “Fetch it down; fetch twenty skeletons you like, the more the merrier. Nothing will convince me.”
Flynn ran upstairs, and presently reappeared with a tall skeleton in his arms. The table was cleared, and we all sat round it with our hands spread out after the usual manner of table turners, the skeleton being placed between the two Swedes, each of whom had hold of one of its hands. Flynn then turned down the lights, and we started asking the table questions, many of which, I fear, were of a very ribald and frivolous nature. Every now and then it gave a big tilt, and Nielssen shouted, “That’s for me! It’s my mother-in-law—she’s found out I’ve been making love to my landlady’s daughter.” Once there was a rap, and for the moment I was taken in. Then the other Swede, Heilborn, cried out, “It’s only Nielssen. He did it with his foot; he’s incorrigible!” This sort of thing went on for some time, Flynn and Nielssen constantly playing some prank, and Heilborn and myself not always too serious.
Suddenly the atmosphere of the room seemed to undergo a change, and, as if by common consent, we were all silent. Then Nielssen uttered a sharp cry of pain.
“Strike a light quickly,” he cried; “my hand is being hurt frightfully!”