My collaborator listened with a look of supreme contempt. She does not care to relate her experiences to the common herd. I was so crushed by her superior manner that I was too modest to tell any story. I never saw a ghost myself, but an intimate friend of mine has had that pleasure.
Our host was not bashful, however. This is what he said: "I like ghosts, because they never come. If there are ten persons in a room, eight are fools, one is a rascal, the tenth might be all right ... but he is generally dead. I have no objection to his coming. Still, as 'Happiness is of a retired nature,' I think him very considerate never to do so."
I did not see any point in this, but every one else seemed to find it very amusing.
Suddenly the great clock in the tower began striking—slowly—twelve!
Then we all went to bed.
· · · · ·
We are all haunted by ghosts—ghosts of old friends, old scenes. We sit alone, and the past rises up before us. They are all with us again—the friends of our childhood, of our school-days, of our "Varsity" life. Once more we feel the warm clasp of their hands, once more we hear the merry voices and look into the kindly faces we knew long years ago.
Picture follows picture.
We see the old garden where we played as children, our brothers and sisters, our child-friends, the old house, the flowers, the green lawn. It is all so familiar, and yet it was all so long ago.
The scene changes: a long, low room, desks hacked with pocket-knives and stained with ink, a hot, drowsy afternoon, a hum of voices, the master's desk, the master himself in cap and gown, a crowd of boys.