"Then shake hands over the bargain."
As he said this he stood up and extended his hand.
With the utmost eagerness I sprang to my feet and made the reciprocating gesture. For an instant I thought that excitement had unsteadied me, for my hand, seeking his, seemed to move at random in the vacant air. Then I made a second attempt, carefully noting the position of his extended palm, and this time the truth dawned upon me in a flash. My hand, indeed, grasped what seemed to be his. But there was no substance to resist my closing fingers, no hardness of interior bones, no softness of enveloping tissues, no pressure, no contact, no warmth.
"Panhandle," I cried, "you are a ghost!"
"Hush!" he answered; "we never use that term in addressing one another. Whatever I am, you are also in process of becoming. You have been slow in making the discovery. I thought you had found me out when we stood among the cypress in the garden."
I was trembling all over and had no control over the next words that came to my tongue. What they were I cannot remember, but Panhandle's reply seems to indicate that I had been imploring him to tell me what kind of a ghost he was.
"Certainly not a character taken out of a novel," he was saying. "Think of the other orders of spirits who I told you were haunting the house, and place me in the last and highest."
"You are the ghost of a philosophy!" I said.
"I am."
"Whose philosophy are you?" I shouted, for the figure of Panhandle was rapidly sliding away into the distance.