All Men are Ghosts

by L. P. Jacks

As Panhandle said this, he drew from his pocket quite the most formidable six-shooting pistol I have ever seen.

I was about to protest against the atrocious obscurantism of this outburst, when my attention was caught by a strange sound of fluttering in the letters of the sky-sign above the house. Looking up, I saw to my amazement that the former legend had disappeared and a new one was gradually forming. "Change the conversation," were the words I read when the swaying letters had settled down into a position of rest. Immediately afterwards the letters fluttered again and the original legend reappeared. "Certainly," I said to myself, "this house is haunted."

Obedient to the mandate of the fluttering letters, I began at once to cast about for an opening that would change the conversation. I could find none, and I was embarrassed by the pause. There was nothing for it but to break out suddenly on a new line. But in the sequel I was astonished to observe with what ease Panhandle, in spite of the violence of the transition, turned the conversation back to its original theme.

"My dear Panhandle," I said, "you are doubtless familiar with the remark of Charles Dickens to the effect that writers of fiction seldom dream of the characters they have created, the reason being that they know those characters to be unreal."

"I am perfectly familiar with the passage," he replied, "but I am astonished to hear it quoted by you. Have you not often insisted, in pursuance, I suppose, of the principles of your philosophy, that characters created by imaginative genius, such as Hamlet or Faust, possess a deeper reality than beings of flesh and blood? Did you not cite instances from Dickens himself and say that Sam Weller and Mr Micawber were more real to you than Louis XIV or George Washington?"

"I certainly said so, and adhere to the statement."

"Then you will not hesitate to admit that a character who is more real than George Washington is at least as capable of being interested in the problem of his own creation as George Washington could have been."

"You are leading me into a trap," I replied.

"I am only requiring you to be in earnest. Like many persons who express the opinion you have just reiterated, you have never taken the trouble to realise what it implies. But I will now show you its implications. Nor could a better means be found of introducing the revelations I am about to make as to what you may expect in this haunted house. It was your good genius who led you to this topic. You will learn presently that the phenomena peculiar to my house are entirely in harmony with your own philosophy on this point, that philosophy being, as I understand, some new brand of Idealism."

"I desire you to proceed with the revelations immediately," I said. "We live in an age which abhors introductions as fiercely as Nature abhors a vacuum, and I beg you to leave it with me to adjust what you are about to deliver to the principles of my philosophy."