"A feathered biped(1) I am known to be,
But gifted with the power of English speech;
Uttering again and many times again
The saddest words within a mortal's reach.
A grim dark thing of evil omen, I,
Repeating evermore my doleful cry."
"Quite too grewsome even for me," said the ghost, as he entered a camp of Brabacons(2). The sentinel, surprised at the strange voice, asked, "Who goes there?" And the ghost, not being able to reply "friend," and too polite to lie, vanished, and soon knocked at the door of the Pope of Rome(3) who, tradition says, kicked the crown off a German emperor's head, to show his power to make and unmake kings. The door being opened, the ghost disappeared to call on the King of France(4) who once navigated the Ohio River on a flat-boat and gave his name as Smith.
"Too vulgar royalty for me," said the ghost to himself, too well bred to show his contempt. Turning to go he stubbed his toe—yes, this ghost had a real toe—he stubbed his great toe against something. Picking it up he found it to be the first book(5) to have its pages numbered. "That will do," he said, under his breath, "to give to the 'Sword Hunters'(6). It will be such a good joke on them, for it tells bigger lies than they can."
Cutting 'cross lots, the ghost next scared out of an old abandoned house a city of British India(7), and was so startled for the moment that he wished himself in the United States with the insect(8) that country people might carry to the barn when arriving home late at night. A wish being equal to a journey by sea and land, the ghost was presently in America. On the way, however, he passed over the sea(9) which, having two outlets to larger seas, its waters never flow out, but always in, and yet its surface is ever several feet lower than the larger waters west and southeast of it. He startled the "midnight judiciary"(10), begged the members' pardon, retired, and almost immediately crossed seas and met the woman(11) who furnished Sir Walter Scott with descriptions of Irish characters for one of his novels. He told her he wished to call next on the Queen of England(12) who saved her husband's life by sucking poison from a wound.
"You should take the 'X.Y.Z. letters'(13) with you as introduction," was the reply.
"Even so," said the ghost, "I might not be received."
"But you would had you the tact of the man(14) who compared himself, when he should be dead, to a book."
"Ah yes, but I have no country, being but a ghost. I am like the man(15) who once refused a sword from a Russian Czar. If now I were the man(16) who shut up Paraguay, making it a second Japan for twenty-five years!"
"Or the Pope of Rome(17) who was made a cardinal at the age of fourteen."
"Ay, or even the Confederate commander(18) at the siege of New Orleans in April, 1862."