“Knowledge is power!” said the ghost. “When you have acquired the knowledge how to eat in good style you may apply it as soon as you get the chance.”
“Look here, my friend,” I answered, “it seems to me that you need very much a chance to get something to eat, even if it were not served up in the style proposed by you. Would it not be better to let this bill of fare alone, and seek for some food?”
“I have no time to attend to that,” replied the ghost. “I must first settle the theory; the practice may wait.”
“But by that time,” I said, “you may be starved to death.”
This remark seemed to annoy the ghost, for it was true, and ghosts never like to hear any truth that goes against their own pet theories. Being themselves made up of delusions, a spark of truth is to them a foreign element, and burns them like fire.
“Go away!” he cried angrily. “Do not waste my time. I shall not permit any scoffing at science.”
As I turned away I saw another ghost of still more pitiful aspect, clothed in rags, the very personification of abject poverty. Want and misery were looking out of his hollow cheeks, and his eyes were buried deep in their sockets. He was making a long calculation.
“What are you calculating?” I asked.
“Do not disturb me,” he said. “I am calculating the interest which I would receive if I were to inherit all of Mr Vanderbilt’s money and estates, and how much, with the compound interest added to it, it would amount to in one hundred years, and I want to see whether this would be enough to enable me to live comfortably in my old age. I have now been over this calculation for many years, but I must begin it again, because the value of the stocks has again changed, and there is a difference in the amount of the interest.”
I was surprised to hear that a person of such a beggarly appearance should have such excellent financial prospects, and I said: