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TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
BT
e, BRANDER JJATTIIEWS

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1896


Ti..f (sff 7 YORK
PUBUC LIBRARY
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1918 l_
BOOKS BY BRANDER MATTHEWS.
importance. THE THEATRES OF PARIS.
FRENCH DRAMATISTS OF THE 19TH CENTURY.
THE LAST MEETING, a Story.
A SECRET OF THE SEA, and Other Stories.
PEN AND INK: Essays on Subjects of More or Leu Iir
A FAMILY TREE, and Other Stories.
WITH MY FRIENDS: Tales Told In Partnership.
A TALE OF TWENTY-FIVE HOURS.
TOM PAULDING, a Story for Boys.
IN THE VESTIBULE LIMITED, a Story.
AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, with Other Essays on Other Isms.
THE STORY OF A STORY, and Other Stories.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT, a Comedy.
STUDIES OF THE STAGE.
THIS PICTURE AND THAT, a Comedy.
VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN.
. TH,E.UeXAJ, MARINE, an Idyl of NarraBan,ett.
AB(JOKj6Sp6jGS, Old and New; Notes of a Book-Lover.
'tfIS fiiCrElS'S SON, a Novel of New York.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF AMERICAS L1TEUA-
• ••.• . ••
• \ • •.TALE9 OF FANTASY AND FACT.
'"" "* f VsPECTS^ OF FICTION, and Other Ventures In
/•. '.Vis';:
Criticism, (/n not.)
Copyright, 189G, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
AII lrettrvid.


vJ
<-
TO
THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND H. C. BUNNER











A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 5
darkness; but now I began dimly to discern
the objects about me. I found that I was ly-
ing on a settee in a state-room at the stern of
the vessel. Through the small round window
over my head the first rays of the rising sun
darted and soon lighted the little cabin.
As I looked about me with curiosity, won-
dering how I came to be a passenger on so un-
expected a voyage, I saw the figure of a man
framed in the doorway at the foot of the
stairs leading to the deck above.
How it was I do not know, but I made sure
at once that he was the captain of the ship,
the man whose voice I had heard answering
the hail.
He was tall and dark, with a scant beard
and a fiery and piercing gaze, which penetrat-
ed me as I faced him. Yet the expression of
his countenance was not unfriendly; nor could
any man lay eyes upon him without a move-
ment of pity for the sadness written on his
visage.
I rose to my feet as he came forward.
"Well," he said, holding out his hand, " and
how are you after your nap?"
He spoke our language with ease and yet


6 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
with a foreign accent. Perhaps it was this
which betrayed him to me.
"Are you not Captain Vanderdecken?" I
asked as I took his hand heartily.
"So you know me?" he returned, with a
mournful little laugh, as he motioned to me to
sit down again.
Thus the ice was broken, and he took his
seat by my side, and we were soon deep in
talk.
When he learned that I was a loyal New-
Yorker, his cordiality increased.
"I have relatives in New Amsterdam," he
cried; "at least I had once. Diedrich Knick-
erbocker was my first cousin. And do you
know Rip Van Winkle?"
Although I could not claim any close friend-
ship with this gentleman, I boasted myself
fully acquainted with his history.
"Yes, yes," said Captain Vanderdeckeu, "I
suppose he was before your time. Most peo-
ple are so short-lived nowadays; it's only with
that Wandering Jew now that I ever have a
chat over old times. Well, well, but you have
heard of Rip? Were you ever told that I was
on a visit to Hendrik Hudson the night Rip


A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY OEOGRAPHY 7
went up the mountain and took a drop too
much?"
I had to confess that here was a fact I had
not before known.
"I ran up the river," said the Hollander,
"to have a game of bowls with the English-
man and his crew, nearly all of them coun-
trymen of mine; and, by-the-way, Hudson
always insists that it was I who brought the
storm with me that gave poor Rip Van Win-
kle the rheumatism as he slept off his intox-
ication on the hillside under the pines. He
was a good fellow, Rip, and a very good judge
of schnapps, too."
Seeing him smile with the pleasant mem-
ories of past companionship, I marvelled when
the sorrowful expression swiftly covered his
face again as a mask.
"But why talk of those who are dead and
gone and are happy?" he asked in his deep
voice, "Soon there will be no one left, per-
haps, but Ahasuerus and Vanderdecken—the
Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutch-
man."
He sighed bitterly, and then he gave a
short, hard laugh.


8 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"There's no use talking about these things,
is there?" he cried. "In an hour or two, if
the wind holds, I can show you the house in
which Ahasuerus has established his museum,
the only solace of his lonely life. He has
the most extraordinary gathering of curiosities
the world has ever seen—truly a virtuoso's col-
lection. An American reporter came on a
voyage with me fifty or sixty years ago, and
I took him over there. His name was Haw-
thorne. He interviewed the Jew, and wrote
up the collection in the American papers, so
I've been told."
"I remember reading the interview," I said,
"and it was indeed a most remarkable collec-
tion."
"It's all the more curious now for the odds
and ends I've been able to pick up here and
there for my old friend," Vanderdecken de-
clared; "I got him the horn of Hernani, the
harpoon with which Long Tom Coffin pinned
the British officer to the mast, the long rifle
of Natty Bumppo, the letter A in scarlet cloth
embroidered in gold by Hester Prynne, the
banner with the strange device ' Excelsior,' the
gold bug which was once used as a plummet,


A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 9
Maud Muller's rake, and the jack-knives of
Hosea Biglow and Sam Lawson."
"You must have seen extraordinary things
yourself," I ventured to suggest.
"No man has seen stranger," he answered,
promptly. "No man has ever been witness
to more marvellous deeds than I—not even
Ahasuerus, I verily believe, for he has only
the land, and I have the boundless sea. I sur-
vey mankind from China to Peru. I have
heard the horns of elfland blowing, and I
could tell you the song the sirens sang. I
have dropped anchor at the No Man's Land,
and off Lyonesse, and in Xanadu, where Alph
the sacred river ran. I have sailed from the
still-vexed Bermoothes to the New Atlantis,
of which there is no mention even until the
year 1629."
"In which year there was published an ac-
count of it written in the Latin tongue, but by
an Englishman," I said, desirous to reveal my
acquirements.
"I have seen every strange coast," con-
tinued the Flying Dutchman. "The Island of
Bells and Robinson Crusoe's Island and the
Kingdoms of Brobdingnag and Lilliput. But it


10 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
is not for me to vaunt myself for my voyages.
And of a truth there are men I should like to
have met and talked with whom I have yet
failed to see. Especially is there one Ulysses,
a sailor-man of antiquity who called himself
Outis, whence I have sometimes suspected
that he came from the town of "VVeissnicht-
wo."
Just to discover what Vanderdecken would
say, I inquired innocently whether this was
the same person as one Captain Nemo of
whose submarine exploits I had read.
"Captain Nemo?" the Flying Dutchman
repeated scornfully. "I never heard of him.
Are you sure there is such a fellow?"
I tried to turn the conversation by asking
if he had ever met another ancient mariner
named Charon.
"Oh, yes," was his answer. "Charon keeps
the ferry across the Styx to the Elysian Fields,
past the sunless marsh of Acheron. Yes—I've
met him more than once. I met him only
last month, and he was very proud of his new
electric launch with its storage battery."
When I expressed my surprise at this, he
asked me if I did not know that the under-


A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 11
world was now lighted by electricity, and that
Pluto had put in all the modern improve-
ments. Before I had time to answer, he
rose from his seat and slapped me on the
shoulder.
"Come up with me!—if you want to behold
things for yourself," he cried, "So far, it
seems to me, you have never seen the sights!"
I followed him on deck. The sun was now
two hours high, and I could just make out a
faint line of land on the horizon.
"That rugged coast is Bohemia, which is
really a desert country by the sea, although ig-
norant and bigoted pedants have dared to deny
it," and the scorn of my companion as he said
this was wonderful to see. "Its borders touch
Alsatia, of which the chief town is a city of ref-
uge. Not far inland, but a little to the south,
is the beautiful Forest of Arden, where men
and maids dwell together in amity, and where
clowns wander, making love to shepherdesses.
Some of these same pestilent pedants have pre-
tended to believe that this forest of Arden was
situated in France, which is absurd, as there
are no serpents and no lions in France, while
we have the best of evidence as to the exist-


A PRIMEROF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 13
ma—the only abbey which is bounded by no
wall and in which there is no clock at all nor
any dial. And what need is there of knowing
the time when one has for companions only
comely and well - conditioned men and fair
women of sweet disposition? And the motto
of the Abbey of Thelema is Fais ce que vou-
dra — Do what you will; and many of those
who dwell in the Forest of Arden will tell you
that they have taken this also for their device,
and that if you live under the greenwood tree
you may spend your life—as you like it."
I acknowledged that this claim was proba-
bly well founded, since I recalled a song of the
foresters in which they declared themselves
without an enemy but winter and rough
weather.
"Yes," he went on, " they are fond of sing-
ing in the Forest of Arden, and they sing good
songs. And so they do in the fair land be-
yond where I have never been, and which I can
never hope to go to see for myself, if all that
they report be true—and yet what would I not
give to see it and to die there."
And as he said this sadly, his voice sank into
a sigh.


14 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"And where does the road through the for-
est lead, that you so much wish to set forth
upon it?" I asked.
"That's the way to Arcady," he said—" to
Arcady where all the leaves are merry. I may
not go there, though I long for it. Those who
attain to its borders never come back again—
and why should they leave it? Yet there are
tales told, and I have heard that this Arcady
is the veritable El Dorado, and that in it is the
true Fountain of Youth, gushing forth unfail-
ingly for the refreshment of all who may reach
it. But no one may find the entrance who can-
not see it by the light that never was on land
or sea."
"It must be a favored region," I re-
marked.
"Of a truth it is," he answered; "and on
the way there is the orchard where grow the
golden apples of Ilesperides, and the dragon
is dead now that used to guard them, and so
any one may help himself to the beautiful
fruit. And by the side of the orchard flows
the river Lethe, of which it is not well for man
to drink, though many men would taste it
gladly." And again he sighed.


A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHT 15
I knew not what to say, and so waited for
him to speak once more.
"That promontory there on the weather
bow," he began again after a few moments'
silence, "that is Barataria, which was long
supposed to be an island by its former gover-
nor, Don Sancho Panza, but which is now
known by all to be connected with the main-
land. Pleasant pastures slope down to the
water, and if we were closer in shore you
might chance to see Rozinante, the famous
charger of Don Quixote de la Mancha, grazing
amicably with the horse that brought the
good news from Ghent to Aix."
"I wish I could see them!" I cried, enthusi-
astically ; "but there is another horse I would
rather behold than any — the winged steed
Pegasus."
Before responding, my guide raised his hand
and shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon.
"No," he said at last. "I cannot descry
any this afternoon. Sometimes in these lati-
tudes I have seen a dozen hippogriffs circling
about the ship, and I should like to have
shown them to you. Perhaps they are all in
the paddock at the stock-farm, where Apollo


16 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
is now mating them with night-mares in the
hope of improving the breed from which he
selects the courses that draw the chariot of
the sun. They say that the experiment would
have more chance of success if it were easier
to find the night-mares' nests."
"It was not a hippogriff I desired to see
especially," I returned when he paused, "al-
though that would be interesting, no doubt.
It was the renowned Pegasus himself."
"Pegasus is much like the other hippo-
griffs," he retorted, "although perhaps he has
a little better record than any of them. But
they say he has not won a single aerial handi-
cap since that American professor of yours har-
nessed him to a one-boss shay. That seemed
to break his spirit, somehow; and I'm told he
would shy now even at a broomstick train."
"Even if he is out of condition," I declared,
"Pegasus is still the steed I desire to see
above all."
"I haven't set eyes on him for weeks," was
the answer, " so he is probably moulting; this
is the time of year. He has a roomy boxstall
in the new Augean stable at the foot of Mount
Parnassus. You know they have turned the


18 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
Dutchman should be a regular reader of the
Holland Gazette f
Vanderdecken went forward into the prow
of the vessel, calling to me to follow.
"Do you see those peaks afar in the dis-
tance?" he asked, pointing over the starboard
bow.
I could just make out a saw-like outline in
the direction indicated.
"Those are the Delectable Mountains," he
informed me; "and down in a hollow between
the two ranges is the Happy Valley."
"Where Kasselas lived?"
"Yes," he replied, "and beyond the Delec-
table Mountains, on the far slope, lies Prester
John's Kingdom, and there dwell anthropoph-
agi, and men whose heads do grow beneath
their shoulders. At least, so they say. For my
part, I have never seen any such. And I have
now no desire to go to Prester John's Kingdom,
since I have been told that he has lately mar-
ried Pope Joan. Do you see that grove of
trees there at the base of the mountains?"
I answered that I thought I could distinguish
weirdly contorted branches and strangely shiv-
ering foliage.


A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 19
"That is the deadly upas-tree," he explained,
"and it is as much as a man's life is worth to
lie down in the shade of its twisted limbs. I
slept there, on that point where the trees are
the thickest, for a fortnight a century or so
ago—but all I had for my pains was a head-
ache. Still I should not advise you to ad-
venture yourself under the shadow of those
melancholy boughs."
I confess at once that I was little prompted
to a visit so dangerous and so profitless.
"Profitless?" he repeated. "As to that I
am not so certain, for if you have a mind to
see the rarest animals in the world, you could
there sate your curiosity. On the shore, be-
tween the foot-hills and the grove of upas, is a
park of wild beasts, the like of which no man
has looked upon elsewhere. Even from the
deck of this ship I have seen more than once a
drove of unicorns, or a herd of centaurs, come
down to the water to drink; and sometimes I
have caught a pleasant glimpse of satyrs and
fauns dancing in the sunlight. And once in-
deed—I shall never forget that extraordinary
spectacle—as I sped past with every sail set
and a ten-knot breeze astern, I saw the phoenix


20 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
blaze up in its new birth, while the little sala-
manders frisked in the intense flame."
"The phoenix?" I cried. "You have seen
the phoenix?"
"In just this latitude," he answered, "but it
was about nine o'clock in the evening and I
remember that the new moon was setting
behind the mountains when I happened to
come on deck."
"And what was the phoenix like ?" I asked.
"Really," he replied, "the bird was almost
as Herodotus described her, of the make and
size of the eagle, with a plumage partly red
and partly golden. If we go by the point by
noon, perhaps you may see her for yourself."
"Is she there still?" I asked, in wonder.
"Why not ?" he returned. "All the game of
this sort is carefully preserved and the law is
off on phoenixes only once in a century. Why,
if it were not for the keepers, there soon would
not be a single griffin or dragon left, not a
single sphinx, not a single chimaera. Even as
it is, I am told they do not breed as freely
now as when they could roam the whole world
in safety. That is why the game laws are so
rigorous. Indeed, I am informed and believe


A PRIMER OF IMAGINARY GEOGRAPHY 21
that it is not permitted to kill the were-wolves
even when their howling, as they run at large
at night, prevents all sleep. It is true, of
course, that very few people care to remain in
such a neighborhood."
"I should think not," I agreed. "And what
manner of people are they who dare to live
here?"
"Along the shore there are a few harpies,"
he answered; "and now and then I have seen
a mermaid on the rocks combing her hair with
a golden comb as she sang to herself."
"Harpies?" I repeated, in disgust. "Why
not the sea-serpent also?"
"There was a sea-serpent which lived for years
in that cove yonder," said the Captain, pointing
to a pleasant bay on the starboard, " but I have
not seen it lately. Unless I am in error, it had
a pitched battle hereabouts with a kraken. I
don't remember who got the better of the fight
—but I haven't seen the snake since."
As I scanned the surface of the water to
see if I might not detect some trace of one or
another of these marvellous beasts of the sea,
I remarked a bank of fog lying across our
course.


34 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
As I did so, the walls and the floor of the
cabin seemed to melt away and to dissolve in
air, and beyond them and taking their place
were the walls and floor of my own house.
Then suddenly the clock on the mantelpiece
struck five, and I heard a bob-tail car rattling
and clattering past the door on its way across
town to Union Square, and thence to Green-
wich Village, and so on down to the Iloboken
Ferry.
Then I found myself on my own sofa, bend-
ing forward to pick up the volume of Cyrano
de Bergerac, which lay on the carpet at my
feet. I sat up erect and collected my thoughts
as best I could after so strange a journey. And
I wondered why it was that no one had ever pre-
pared a primer of imaginary geography, giv-
ing to airy nothings a local habitation and a
name, and accompanying it with an atlas of
maps in the manner of the Carte du Pays de
Tendre.
(1894.)


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME





THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME

the twelfth stroke of the bell
in the tower at the corner tolled
forth slowly, the midnight wind
blew chill down the deserted av-
enue, and swept it clear of all belated way-
farers. The bare trees in the thin strip of
park clashed their lifeless branches; the river
far below slipped along silently. There was
no moon, and the stars were shrouded. It was
a black night. Yet far in the distance there
was a gleam of cheerful light which lured me
on and on. I could not have said why it was
that I had ventured forth at that hour on such
a night. It seemed to me as though the yel-
low glimmer I beheld afar off was the goal of
my excursion. Something within whispered
to me then that I need go no farther when


28 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
once I had come to the spot whence the soft
glare proceeded.
The pall of darkness was so dense that I
could not see the sparse houses I chanced to
pass, nor did I know where I was any more.
I urged forward blindly, walking towards the
light, which was all that broke the blackness
before me; its faint illumination seemed to
me somehow to be kindly, inviting, irresisti-
ble. At last I came to a halt in front of a
building I had never before seen, although I
thought myself well acquainted with that part
of the city. It was a circular edifice, or so it
seemed to me then; and I judged that it had
but a single story, or two, at the most. The
door stood open to the street; and it was from
this that the light was cast. So dim was this
illumination now I had come to it that I mar-
velled I could have seen it at all afar off as I
was when first I caught sight of it.
While I stood at the portal of the unsus-
pected edifice, peering doubtfully within, won-
dering to what end I had been led thither, and
hesitating as to my next step, I felt again the
impulse to go forward. At that moment tiny
darts of fire, as it were, glowed at the end of


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 29
the hall that opened before me, and they ran
together rapidly and joined in liquid lines and
then faded as suddenly as they had come—
but not too soon for me to read the simple
legend they had written in the air—an invi-
tation to me, so I interpreted it, to go forward
again, to enter the building, and to see for
myself why I had been enticed there.
Without hesitation I obeyed. I walked
through the doorway, and I became con-
scious that the door had closed behind me as
I pressed forward. The passage was narrow
and but faintly lighted; it bent to the right
with a circular sweep as though it skirted the
inner circumference of the building; still curv-
ing, it sank by a gentle gradient; and then it
rose again and turned almost at right angles.
Pushing ahead resolutely, although in not a
little doubt as to the meaning of my advent-
ure, I thrust aside a heavy curtain, soft to the
hand. Then I found myself just inside a large
circular hall. Letting the hangings fall be-
hind me, I took three or four irresolute paces
which brought me almost to the centre of the
room. I saw that the walls were continuously
draped with the heavy folds of the same soft


30 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
velvet, so that I could not even guess where it
was I had entered. The rotunda was bare of
all furniture; there was no table in it, no chair,
no sofa; nor was anything hanging from the
ceiling or against the curtained walls. All that
the room contained was a set of four curiously
shaped narrow stands, placed over against one
another at the corners of what might be a
square drawn within the'circle of the hall.
These narrow stands were close to the cur-
tains; they were perhaps a foot wide, each of
them, or it might be a little more: they were
twice or three times as long as they were wide;
and they reached a height of possibly three or
four feet.
Going towards one of these stands to exam-
ine it more curiously, I discovered that there
were two projections from the top, resembling
eye-pieces, as though inviting the beholder to
gaze into the inside of the stand. Then I
thought I heard a faint metallic click above
my head. Raising my eyes swiftly, I read a few
words written, as it were, against the dark vel-
vet of the heavy curtains in clots of flame that
flowed one into the other and melted away in
a moment. When this mysterious legend had


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 31
faded absolutely, I could not recall the words
I had read in the fitful and flitting letters of
fire, and yet I retained the meaning of the
message; and I understood that if I chose to
peer through the eye-pieces I should see a
succession of strange dances.
To gaze upon dancing was not what I had
gone forth to do, but I saw no reason why I
should not do so, as I was thus strangely bid-
den. I lowered my head until my eyes were
close to the two openings at the top of the
stand. I looked into blackness at first, and
yet I thought that I could detect a mystic
commotion of the invisible particles at which
I was staring. I made no doubt that, if I
waited, in due season the promise would be
fulfilled. After a period of expectancy which
I could not measure, infinitesimal sparks dart-
ed hither and thither, and there was a slight
crackling sound. I concentrated my atten-
tion on what I was about to see; and in a
moment more I was rewarded.
The darkness took shape and robed itself in
color; and there arose out of it a spacious
banquet-hall, where many guests sat at supper.
I could not make out whether they were Ro-


82 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
mans or Orientals; the structure itself had a
Latin solidity, but the decorations were Eastern
in their glowing gorgeousness. The hall was
illumined by hanging lamps, by the light of
which I tried to decide whether the ruler who
sat in the seat of honor was a Roman or an
Oriental. The beautiful woman beside him
struck me as Eastern beyond all question.
While I gazed intently he turned to her and
proffered a request. She smiled acquiescence,
and there was a flash of anticipated triumph
in her eye as she beckoned to a menial and
sent him forth with a message. A movement
as of expectancy ran around the tables where
the guests sat at meat. The attendants opened
wide the portals and a young girl came for-
ward. She was perhaps fourteen or fifteen
years of age, but jn the East women ripen
young, and her beauty was indisputable. She
had large, deep eyes and a full mouth; and
there was a chain of silver and golden coins
twisted into her coppery hair. She was so like
to the woman who sat beside the ruler that I
did not doubt them to be mother and daugh-
ter. At a word from the elder the younger
began to dance; and her dance was Oriental,


34 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
a tambourine in her hand and she was twist-
ing and turning in cadence to her own song.
Then she went to one side where stood a white
goat with gilded horns and put down her tam-
bourine and took up two swords; and with
these in her hands she resumed her dance. A
man in the throng, a man of scant thirty-five,
but already bald, a man of stalwart frame,
fixed hot eyes upon her; and from time to
time a smile and a sigh met on his lips, but
the smile was more dolorous than the sigh.
And as the gypsy girl ceased her joyous gyra-
tions, the bonfire died out, and darkness fell
on the scene again, and I could no longer see
anything.
Again I waited, and after an interval no
longer than the other there came a faint glow
that grew until I saw clearly as in the morn-
ing sun the glade of a forest through which a
brook rippled. A sad-faced woman sat on a
stone by the side of the streamlet; her gray
garments set off the strange ornament in the
fashion of a single letter of the alphabet that
was embroidered in gold and in scarlet over
her heart. Visible at some distance was a lit-
tle girl, like a bright - apparelled vision, in a


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 35
sunbeam, which fell down upon her through
an arch of boughs. The ray quivered to and
fro, making her figure dim or distinct, now
like a real child, now like a child's spirit, as the
splendor came and went. With violets and
anemones and columbines the little girl had
decorated her hair. The mother looked at
the child and the child danced and sparkled
and prattled airily along the course of the
streamlet, which kept up a babble, kind, quiet,
soothing, but melancholy. Then the mother
raised her head as though her ears had de-
tected the approach of some one through the
wood. But before I could see who this new-
comer might be, once more the darkness set-
tled down upon the scene.
This time I knew the interval between the
succeeding visions and I waited without impa
tience; and in due season I found myself gaz
ing at a picture as different as might be from
any I had yet beheld.
In the broad parlor of a house that seemed
to be spacious, a middle - aged lady, of an ap-
pearance at once austere and kindly, was look-
ing at a smiling gentleman who was coming
towards her pulling along a little negro girl


86 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
about eight or nine years of age. She was one
of the blackest of her race; and her round,
shining eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved
with quick and restless glances over everything
in the room. Her woolly hair was braided in
sundry little tails, which stuck out in every
direction. She was dressed in a single filthy,
ragged garment, made of bagging; and alto-
gether there was something odd and goblin-
like about her appearance. The severe old
maid examined this strange creature in dismay
and then directed a glance of inquiry at the
gentleman in white. He smiled again and
gave a signal to the little negro girl. Where-
upon the black eyes glittered with a kind of
wicked drollery, and apparently she began to
sing, keeping time with her hands and feet,
spinning round, clapping her hands, knocking
her knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of
time; and finally, turning a somersault or two,
she came suddenly down on the carpet, and
stood with her hands folded, and a most sanc-
timonious expression of meekness and solemni-
ty over her face, only broken by the cunning
glances which she shot askance from the cor-
ners of her eyes. The elderly lady stood is 


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 37
lent, perfectly paralyzed with amazement, while
the smiling gentleman in white was amused at
her astonishment.
Once more the vision faded. And when,
after the same interval, the darkness began to
disappear again, even while everything was dim
and indistinct I knew that the scene was shifted
from the South to the North. I saw a room
comfortably furnished, with a fire smoulder-
ing in a porcelain stove. In a corner stood a
stripped Christmas tree, with its candles burned
out. Against the wall between the two doors
was a piano, on which a man was playing—a
man who twisted his head now and again to
look over his shoulder, sometimes at another
and younger man standing by the stove, some-
times at a young woman who was dancing alone
in the centre of the room. This young woman
had draped herself in a long parti - colored
shawl and she held a tambourine in her hand.
There was in her eyes a look of fear, as of one
conscious of an impending misfortune. As I
gazed she danced more and more wildly. The
man standing by the porcelain stove was ap-
parently making suggestions, to which she paid
no heed. At last her hair broke loose and fell


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 39
eye-pieces. No sooner had I taken this posi-
tion than the dots of fire darted across the
depth into which I was gazing; and then there
came a full clear light as of a cloudless sky,
and I saw the walls of an ancient city. At the
gates of the city there stood a young man, and
toward him there ran a warrior, brandishing a
spear, while the bronze of his helmet and his
armor gleamed in the sunlight. And trembling
seized the young man and he fled in fear; and
the warrior darted after him, trusting in his
swift feet. Valiant was the flier, but far might-
ier he who fleetingly pursued him. At last
the young man took heart and made a stand
against the warrior. They faced each other
in fight. The warrior hurled his spear and it
went over the young man's head. And the
young man then hurled his spear in turn and
it struck fair upon the centre of the warrior's
shield. Then the young man drew his sharp
sword that by his flank hung great and strong.
But by some magic the warrior had recovered
his spear; and as the young man came forward
he hurled it again, and it drove through the neck
of the young man at the joint of his armor,
and he fell in the dust. After that the sun


40 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
was darkened; and in a moment more I was
looking into an empty blackness.
When again the light returned it was once
more with the full blaze of mid-day that the
scene was illumined, and the glare of the sun
was reflected from the burning sands of the des-
ert. Two or three palms arose near a well, and
there two horsemen faced each other warily.
One was a Christian knight in a coat of linked
mail, over which he wore a surcoat of em-
broidered cloth, much frayed and bearing more
than once the arms of the wearer—a couchant
leopard. The other was a Saracen, who was
circling swiftly about the knight of the leop-
ard. The crusader suddenly seized the mace
which hung at his saddle-bow, and with a
strong hand and unerring aim sent it crashing
against the head of his foe, who raised his
buckler of rhinoceros-hide in time to save his
life, though the force of the blow bore him
from the saddle. The knight spurred his steed
forward, but the Saracen leaped into his seat
again without touching the stirrup. While the Christian recovered his mace, the infidel
withdrew to a little distance and strung the
short bow he carried at his back. Then he


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 41
circled about his foe, whose armor stood him
in good stead, until the seventh shaft appar-
ently found a less perfect part, and the Chris-
tian dropped heavily from his horse. But the
dismounted Oriental found himself suddenly in
the grasp of the European, who had recourse
to this artifice to bring his enemy within his
reach. The Saracen was saved again by his
agility; and loosing his sword-belt, which the
knight had grasped, he mounted his watching
horse. He had lost his sword and his arrows
and his turban, and these disadvantages seemed
to incline him for a truce. He approached
the Christian with his right hand extended,
but no longer in a menacing attitude. What
the result of this proffer of a parley might be
I could not observe, for the figures became in-
distinct, as though a cloud had settled down
on them; and in a few seconds more all was
blank before me.
When the next scene grew slowly into view
I thought for a moment it might be a contin-
uation of the preceding, for the country I be-
held was also soaking in the hot sunlight of the
South, and there was also a mounted knight
in armor. A second glance undeceived me.


42 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
This knight was old and thin and worn, and
his armor was broken and pieced, and his hel-
met was but a barber's basin, and his steed
was a pitiful skeleton. His countenance was
sorrowful indeed, but there was that in his
manner which would stop any man from deny-
ing his nobility. His eye was fired with a high purpose and a lofty resolve. In the distance
before him were a group of windmills waving
their arms in the air, and the knight urged
forward his wretched horse as though to
charge them. Upon an ass behind him was a
fellow of the baser sort, a genial, simple fol-
lower, seemingl}7' serving him as his squire.
As the knight pricked forward his sorry steed
and couched his lance, the attendant appar-
ently appealed to him, and tried to explain,
and even ventured on expostulation. But the
knight gave no heed to the protests of the
squire, who shook his head and dutifully fol-
lowed his master. What the issue of this un-
equal combat was to be I could not see, for
the inexorable veil of darkness fell swiftly.
Even after the stray sparks had again flitted
through the blackness into which I was gazing
daylight did not return, and it was with diffi-


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 43
culty I was able at last to make out a vague
street in a mediaeval city doubtfully outlined
by the hidden moon. From a window high
above the stones there came a faint glimmer.
Under this window stood a soldier worn with
the wars, who carried himself as though glad
now to be at home again. He seemed to hear
approaching feet, and he withdrew into the
shadow as two others advanced. One of these
was a handsome youth with an eager face, in
which spirituality and sensuality contended.
The other was older, of an uncertain age, and
his expression was mocking and evil; he car-
ried some sort of musical instrument, and to
this he seemed to sing while the younger man
looked up at the window. The soldier came
forward angrily and dashed the instrument to
the ground with his sword. Then the new-
comers drew also, and the elder guarded while
the younger thrust. There were a few swift
passes, and then the younger of the two lunged
fiercely, and the soldier fell back on the stones
wounded to the death. Without a glance be-
hind them, the two who had withstood his on-
slaught withdrew, as the window above opened
and a fair-haired girl leaned forth.


44 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
Then nothing was visible, until after an in-
terval the light once more returned and I saw a
sadder scene than any yet. In a hollow of the
bare mountains a little knot of men in dark-
blue uniforms were centred about their com-
mander, whose long locks floated from beneath
his broad hat. Around this small band of no
more than a score of soldiers, thousands of
red Indians were raging, with exultant hate in
their eyes. The bodies of dead comrades lay
in narrowing circles about the thinning group
of blue-coats. The red men were picking off
their few surviving foes, one by one; and the
white men could do nothing, for their car-
tridges were all gone. They stood at bay, val-
iant and defiant, despite their many wounds;
but the line of their implacable foemen was
drawn tighter and tighter about them, and one
after another they fell forward dying or dead,
until at last only the long-haired commander
was left, sore wounded but unconquered in
spirit.
When this picture of strong men facing
death fearlessly was at last dissolved into
darkness like the others that had gone before,
I had an inward monition that it was the last


46 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
perhaps, or it might be French, "I am glad
always to show the visions I have under my
control to those who will appreciate them."
I tried to stammer forth a few words of
thanks and of praise for what I had seen.
"Did you recognize the strange scenes
shown to you by these two instruments?" he
asked, after bowing gently in acknowledg-
ment of my awkward compliments.
Then I plucked up courage and made bold
to express to him the surprise I had felt, not
only at the marvellous vividness with which
the actions had been repeated before my eyes,
like life itself in form and in color and in mo-
tion, but also at the startling fact that some
of the things I had been shown were true and
some were false. Some of them had happened
actually to real men and women of flesh and
blood, while others were but bits of vain imag-
ining of those who tell tales as an art and as a
means of livelihood.
I expressed myself as best I could, clumsily,
no doubt; but he listened patiently and with
the smile of toleration on his lips.
"Yes," he answered, "I understand your
surprise that the facts and the fictions are


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 47
mingled together in these visions of mine as
though there was little to choose between
them. You are not the first to wonder or to
express that wonder; and the rest of them
were young like you. When you are as old
as I am—when you have lived as long as I—
when you have seen as much of life as I—then
you will know, as I know, that fact is often
inferior to fiction, and that it is often also
one and the same thing; for what might
have been is often quite as true as what
actually was?"
I did not know what to say in answer to
this, and so I said nothing.
"What would you say to me," he went on—
and now it seemed to me that his smile sug-
gested rather pitying condescension than kind-
ly toleration—" what would you say to me, if
I were to tell you that I myself have seen all
the many visions unrolled before you in these
instruments? What would you say, if I de-
clared that I had gazed on 	he dances of Sa-
lome and of Esmeralda? that I had beheld
the combat of Achilles and Hector and the
mounted fight of Saladin and the Knight of
the Leopard?"


48 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"You are not Time himself?" I asked in
amaze.
He laughed lightly, and without bitterness
or mockery.
"No," he answered, promptly, "I am not
Time himself. And why should you think so?
Have I a scythe? Have I an hour-glass? Have
I a forelock? Do I look so very old, then?"
I examined him more carefully to answer
this last question, and the more I scrutinized
him the more difficult I found it to declare his
age. At first I had thought him to be forty,
perhaps, or of a certainty less than fifty. But
now, though his hair was black, though his eye
was bright, though his step was firm, though
his gestures were free and sweeping, I had my
doubts; and I thought I could perceive, one
after another, many impalpable signs of ex-
treme old age.
Then, all at once, he grew restive under my
fixed gaze.
"But it is not about me that we need to
waste time now," he said, impatiently. "You
have seen what two of my instruments con-
tain; would you like now to examine the
contents of the other two?"


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME 49
I answered in the affirmative.
"The two you have looked into are gratui-
tous," he continued. "For what you beheld
in them there is no charge. But a sight of the
visions in the other two or in either one of
them must be paid for. So far, you are wel-
come as my guest; but if you wish to see any
more you must pay the price."
I asked what the charge was, as I thrust my
hand into my pocket to be certain that I had
my purse with me.
He saw my gesture, and he smiled once
more.
"The visions I can set before you in those
two instruments you have not yet looked
into are visions of your own life," he said.
"In that stand there," and he indicated one
behind my back, "you can see five of the
most important episodes of your past."
I withdrew my hand from my pocket. "I
thank you," I said, "but I know my own past,
and I have no wish to see it again, however
cheap the spectacle."
"Then you will be more interested in the
fourth of my instruments," he said, as he
waved his thin, delicate hand towards the


50 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
stand which stood in front of me. "In this
you can see your future!"
I made an involuntary step forward; and
then, at a second thought, I shrank back again.
"The price of this is not high," he contin-
ued, "and it is not payable in money."
"How, then, should I buy it?" I asked,
doubtingly.
"In life!" he answered, gravely. "The
vision of life must be paid for in life itself.
For every ten years of the future which I may
unroll before you here, you must assign me a
year of life — twelve months — to do with as
I will."
Strange as it seems to me now, I did not
doubt that he could do as he declared. I
hesitated, and then I fixed my resolve.
"Thank you," I said, and I saw that he was
awaiting my decision eagerly. "Thank you
again for what I have already seen and for
what you proffer me. But my past I have
lived once, and there is no need to turn over
again the leaves of that dead record. And
the future I must face as best I may, the more
bravely, I think, that I do not know what it
holds in store for me."


52 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
an opening like that through which I had
entered.
I followed him, and the curtains dropped be-
hind me as I passed into the insufficiently illu-
minated passage beyond. I thought that the
mysterious being with whom I had been con-
versing had preceded me, but before I had gone
twenty paces I found that I was alone. I
pushed ahead, and my path twisted and turned
on itself and rose and fell irregularly like that
by means of which I had made my way into
the unknown edifice. At last I picked my
steps down winding stairs, and at the foot I
saw the outline of a door. I pushed it back,
and I found myself in the open air.
I was in a broad street, and over my head an
electric light suddenly flared out and white-
washed the pavement at my feet. At the
corner a train of the elevated railroad rushed
by with a clattering roar and a trailing plume
of white steam. Then a cable-car clanged
past with incessant bangs upon its gong. Thus
it was that I came back to the world of
actuality.
I turned to get my bearings, that I might
find my way home again. I was standing


THE KINETOSCOPE OF TIME ,",;{
almost in front of a shop, the windows of
which were filled with framed engravings.
One of these caught my eye, and I confess
that I was surprised. It was a portrait of a
man—it was a portrait of the man with whom
I had been talking.
I went close to the window, that I might
see it better. The electric light emphasized
the lines of the high-bred face, with its sombre
searching eyes and the air of old-world breed-
ing. There could be no doubt whatever that
the original of this portrait was the man from
whom I had just parted. By the costume I
knew that the original had lived in the last
century; and the legend beneath the head,
engraved in a flowing script, asserted this to
be a likeness of "Monsieur le Comte de Cagli-
osiro."
(1S95.)





THE DREAM-GOWN OF THE JAPANESE
AMBASSADOR


THE DRE AM-GOWN OF THE
JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 
IJFTER arranging the Egyptian and
Mexican pottery so as to contrast
agreeably with the Dutch and the
German beer-mugs on the top of
the bookcase that ran along one wall of the
sitting-room, Cosmo Waynflete went back into
the bedroom and took from a half-empty trunk
the little cardboard boxes in which he kept the
collection of playing-cards, and of all manner
of outlandish equivalents for these simple in-
struments of fortune, picked up here and there
during his two or three years of dilettante
travelling in strange countries. At the same
time he brought out a Japanese crystal ball,
which he stood upon its silver tripod, placing


60 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
his arms into the dressing-gown with its sym-
bolic embroidery on the skirt and sleeves, he
remembered distinctly the dismal day when he
had bought it in a little curiosity-shop in Nu-
remberg; and as he fastened across his chest
one by one the loops of silken cord to the three
coins which served as buttons down the front
of the robe, he recalled also the time and the
place where he had picked up each of these
pieces of gold and silver, one after another. The
first of them was a Persian daric, which he had
purchased from a dealer on the Grand Canal
in Venice; and the second was a Spanish peso
struck under Philip II. at Potosi, which he had
found in a stall on the embankment of the
Quay Voltaire, in Paris; and the third was a
York shilling, which he had bought from the
man who had turned it up in ploughing a field
that sloped to the Hudson near Sleepy Hollow.
Having thus wrapped himself in this unusual
dressing-gown with its unexpected buttons of
gold and silver, Cosmo Waynflete went back
into the front room. He dropped into the
arm-chair before the fire. It was with a smile
of physical satisfaction that he stretched out
his feet to the hickory blaze.


nHEAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 63
little figures, and he accepted them as of the
full stature of man. This increase in their
size was no more a source of wonderment to
him than it had been to discern himself in the
midst of them. He accepted both of these
marvellous things without question — indeed,
with no thought at all that they were in any
way peculiar or abnormal. Not only this, but
thereafter he seemed to have transferred his
personality to the Cosmo Waynflete who was
a Japanese samurai and to have abandoned en-
tirely the Cosmo Waynflete who was an Amer-
ican traveller, and who had just returned to
New York that Christmas morning. So com-
pletely did the Japanese identity dominate
that the existence of the American identity
was wholly unknown to him. It was as though
the American had gone to sleep in New York
at the end of the nineteenth century, and had
walked a Japanese in Nippon in the beginning
of the eighteenth century.
With his sword by his side—a Murimasa
blade, likely to bring bad luck to the wearer
sooner or later—he had walked from his own
house in the quarter of Kioto which is called
Yamashina to the quarter which is called


64 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
Yoshiwara, a place of ill repute, where dwell
women of evil life, and where roysterers and
drunkards come by night. He knew that the
sacred duty of avenging his master's death had
led him to cast off his faithful wife so that he
might pretend to riot in debauchery at the
Three Sea-Shores. The fame of his shameful
doings had spread abroad, and it must soon
come to the ears of the man whom he wished
to take unawares. Now he was lying prone
in the street, seemingly sunk in a drunken
slumber, so that men might see him and carry
the news to the treacherous assassin of his be-
loved master. As he lay there that afternoon,
he revolved in his mind the devices he should
use to make away with his enemy when the
hour might be ripe at last for the accomplish-
ment of his holy revenge. To himself he
called the roll of his fellow-ronins, now biding
their time, as he was, and ready always to obey
his orders and to follow his lead to the death,
when at last the sun should rise on the day of
vengeance.
So he gave no heed to the scoffs and the
jeers of those who passed along the street,
laughing him to scorn as they beheld him ly-


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 65
ing there in a stupor from excessive drink at
that inordinate hour of the day. And among
those who came by at last was a man from
Satsuma, who was moved to voice the re-
proaches of all that saw this sorry sight.
"Is not this Oishi Kuranosuke," said the
man from Satsuma, " who was a councillor of
Asano Takumi no Kami, and who, not having
the heart to avenge his lord, gives himself up
to women and wine? See how he lies drunk
in the public street! Faithless beast! Fool and
craven! Unworthy of the name of a samurai!"
And with that the man from Satsuma trod
on him as he lay there, and spat upon him, and
went away indignantly. The spies of Kotsuke
no Suke heard what the man from Satsuma
had said, and they saw how he had spurned the
prostrate samurai with his foot; and they went
their way to report to their master that he
need no longer have any fear of the councillors
of Asano Takumi no Kami. All this the man,
lying prone in the dust of the street, noted;
and it made his heart glad, for then he made
sure that the day was soon coming when he
could do his duty at last and take vengeance
for the death of his master.


m HE lay there longer than he knew, and the
twilight settled down at last, and the evening
stars came out. And then, after a while, and
by imperceptible degrees, Cosmo Waynflete
became conscious that the scene had changed
and that he had changed with it. He was no
longer in Japan, but in Persia. He was no
longer lying like a drunkard in the street of a
city, but slumbering like a weary soldier in a
little oasis by the side of a spring in the midst
of a sandy desert. He was asleep, and his
faithful horse was unbridled that it might
crop the grass at will.
The air was hot and thick, and the leaves
of the slim tree above him were never stirred
by a wandering wind. Yet now and again
there came from the darkness a faintly fetid
odor. The evening wore on and still he slept,
until at length in the silence of the night a
strange huge creature wormed its way steadily


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 67
out of its lair amid the trees, and drew near
the sleeping man to devour him fiercely. But
the horse neighed vehemently and beat the
ground with his hoofs and waked his master.
Then the hideous monster vanished; and the
man, aroused from his sleep, saw nothing, al-
though the evil smell still lingered in the
sultry atmosphere. He lay down again once
more, thinking that for once his steed had
given a false alarm. Again the grisly dragon
drew nigh, and again the courser notified its
rider, and again the man could make out
nothing in the darkness of the night; and
again he was wellnigh stifled by the foul
emanation that trailed in the wake of the
misbegotten creature. He rebuked his horse
and laid him down once more.
A third time the dreadful beast approached,
and a third time the faithful charger awoke
its angry master. But there came the breath
of a gentle breeze, so that the man did not
fear to fill his lungs; and there was a vague
light in the heavens now, so that he could
dimly discern his mighty enemy; and at once
he girded himself for the fight. The scaly
monster came full at him with dripping fangs,


68 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
its mighty body thrusting forward its huge
and hideous head. The man met the attack
without fear and smote the beast full on the
crest, but the blow rebounded from its coat of
mail.
Then the faithful horse sprang forward and
bit the dreadful creature full upon the neck
and tore away the scales, so that its master's
sword could pierce the armored hide. So the
man was able to dissever the ghastly head and
thus to slay the monstrous dragon. The black-
ness of night wrapped him about once more as
he fell on his knees and gave thanks for his
victory; and the wind died away again.


70 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
weapons in their hands. For a moment Cosmo
Waynflete was a Spaniard, and to him it was
a point of honor to aid the weaker party. He
cried to the fugitive to pluck up heart and to
withstand the enemy stoutly. But the hunted
man fled on, and after him went one of the
pursuers, a tall, thin fellow, with a long black
cloak streaming behind him as he ran.
The other of the two, a handsome lad with
fair hair, came to a halt and crossed swords
with Cosmo, and soon showed himself to be
skilled in the art of fence. So violent was
the young fellow's attack that in the ardor of
self-defence Cosmo ran the boy through the
body before he had time to hold his hand or
even to reflect.
The lad toppled over sideways. "Oh, my
mother!" he cried, and in a second he was dead.
While Cosmo bent over the body, hasty foot-
steps again echoed along the silent thorough-
fare. Cosmo peered around the corner, and by
the struggling moonbeams he could see that it
was the tall, thin fellow in the black cloak,
who was returning with half a score of retain-
ers, all armed, and some of them bearing
torches.


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 71
Cosmo turned and fled swiftly, but being a
stranger in the city he soon lost himself in its
tortuous streets. Seeing a light in a window
and observing a vine that trailed from the
balcony before it, he climbed up boldly, and
found himself face to face with a gray-haired
lady, whose visage was beautiful and kindly
and noble. In a few words he told her his
plight and besought sanctuary. She listened
to him in silence, with exceeding courtesy of
manner, as though she were weighing his
words before making up her mind. She raised
the lamp on her table and let its beams fall on
his lineaments. And still she made no answer
to his appeal.
Then came a glare of torches in the street
below and a knocking at the door. Then at
last the old lady came to a resolution; she
lifted the tapestry at the head of her bed and
told him to bestow himself there. No sooner
was he hidden than the tall, thin man in the
long black cloak entered hastily. he greeted
the elderly lady as his aunt, and he told her
that her son had been set upon by a stranger
in the street and had been slain. She gave a
great cry and never took her eyes from his


74 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
darker and darker, the stars seemed to sink
deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasion-
ally hid them from his sight. He had never
felt so lonely and dismal. In the centre of
the road stood an enormous tulip-tree; its
limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough
to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting
down almost to the earth, and rising again
into the air. As he approached this fearful
tree he thought he saw something white hang-
ing in the midst of it, but on looking more
narrowly he perceived it was a place where it
had been scathed by lightning and the white
wood laid bare. About two hundred yards
from the tree a small brook crossed the road;
and as he drew near he beheld—on the margin
of this brook, and in the dark shadow of the
grove—he beheld something huge, misshapen,
black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed
gathered up in the gloom like some gigantic
monster ready to spring upon the traveller.
He demanded, in stammering accents, "Who
are you?" He received no reply. He repeated
his demand in a still more agitated voice.
Still there was no answer. And then the
shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion,


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 75
and with a scramble and a bound stood in the
middle of the road. He appeared to be a
horseman of large dimensions and mounted
on a black horse of powerful frame. Having
no relish for this strange midnight companion,
Cosmo Waynflete urged on his steed in hopes
of leaving the apparition behind; but the
stranger quickened his horse also to an equal
pace. And when the first horseman pulled up,
thinking to lag behind, the second did like-
wise. There was something in the moody and
dogged silence of this pertinacious companion
that was mysterious and appalling. It was
soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a
rising ground which brought the figure of his
fellow-traveller against the sky, gigantic in
height and muffled in a cloak, he was horror-
struck to discover the stranger was headless!
—but his horror was still more increased in
observing that the head which should have
rested on the shoulders was carried before the
body on the pommel of the saddle.
The terror of Cosmo Waynflete rose to des-
peration, and he spurred his steed suddenly in
the hope of giving his weird companion the
slip. But the headless horseman started full


76 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
jump with him. His own horse, as though pos-
sessed by a demon, plunged headlong down the
hill. He could hear, however, the black steed
panting and blowing close behind him; he
even fancied that he felt the hot breath of the
pursuer. When he ventured at last to cast a
look behind, he saw the goblin rising in the
stirrups, and in the very act of hurling at him
the grisly head, lie fell out of the saddle to
the ground; and the black steed and the gob-
lin rider passed by him like a whirlwind.


VI
How long he lay there by the roadside,
stunned and motionless, he could not guess;
but when he came to himself at last the sun
was already high in the heavens. He discov-
ered himself to be reclining on the tall grass
of a pleasant graveyard which surrounded a
tiny country church in the outskirts of a pret-
ty little village. It was in the early summer,
and the foliage was green above him as the
boughs swayed gently to and fro in the morn-
ing breeze. The birds were singing gayly as
they flitted about over his head. The bees
hummed along from flower to flower. At last,
so it seemed to him, he had come into a land
of peace and quiet, where there was rest and
comfort and where no man need go in fear of
his life. It was a country where vengeance
was not a duty and where midnight combats
were not a custom. He found himself smiling
as he thought that a grisly dragon and a gob-


78 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
lin rider would be equally out of place in this
laughing landscape.
Then the bell in the steeple of the little
church began to ring merrily, and he rose to
his feet in expectation. All of a sudden the
knowledge came to him why it was that they
were ringing. He wondered then why the
coming of the bride was thus delayed. He
knew himself to be a lover, with life opening
brightly before him; and the world seemed to
him sweeter than ever before and more beau-
tiful.
Then at last the girl whom he loved with his
whole heart and who had promised to marry
him appeared in the distance, and he thought
he had never seen her look more lovely. As
he beheld his bridal party approaching, he
slipped into the church to await her at the
altar. The sunshine fell full upon the portal
and made a halo about the girl's head as she
crossed the threshold.
But even when the bride stood by his side
and the clergyman had begun the solemn ser-
vice of the church the bells kept on, and soon
their chiming became a clangor, louder and
sharper and more insistent.


VII
So clamorous and so persistent was the ring-
ing that Cosmo Waynflete was roused at last.
He found himself suddenly standing on his
feet, with his hand clutching the back of the
chair in which he had been sitting before the
fire when the rays of the setting sun had set
long ago. The room was dark, for it was
lighted now only by the embers of the burnt-
out fire; and the electric bell was ringing
steadily, as though the man outside the door
had resolved to waken the seven sleepers.
Then Cosmo Waynflete was wide-awake
again; and he knew where he was once more
— not in Japan, not in Persia, not in Lisbon,
not in Sleepy Hollow, but here in New York,
in his own room, before his own fire. He
opened the door at once and admitted his
friend, Paul Stuyvesant.
"It isn't dinner-time, is it?" he asked. "I'm
not late, am I? The fact is, I've been asleep."


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 81
"Of course," his friend returned; "in sleep
our natural and healthy egotism is absolutely
unrestrained. It doesn't make any matter
where the scene is laid or whether the play is
a comedy or a tragedy, the dreamer has al-
ways the centre of the stage, with the calcium
light turned full on him."
"That's just it," Waynflete went on; "this
dream of mine makes me feel as if I were an
actor, and as if I had been playing many parts,
one after the other, in the swiftest succession.
They are not familiar to me, and 37et I confess
to a vague feeling of unoriginality. It is as
though I were a plagiarist of adventure—if that
be a possible supposition. I have just gone
through these startling situations myself, and
yet I'm sure that they have all of them hap-
pened before — although, perhaps, not to any
one man. Indeed, no one man could have had
all these adventures of mine, because I see now
that I have been whisked through the centu-
ries and across the hemispheres with a sudden-
ness possible only in dreams. Yet all my ex-
periences seem somehow second-hand, and not
really my own."
"Picked up here and there—like your brie-


TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
a-brac?" suggested Stayvesant. "But what
are these alluring adventures of yours that
stretched through the ages and across the
continents?"
Then, knowing how fond his friend was of
solving mysteries and how proud he was of his
skill in this art, Cosmo Waynflete narrated his
dream as it has been set down in these pages.
When he had made an end, Paul Stuyve-
sant's first remark was: "I'm sorry I hap-
pened along just then and waked you up be-
fore you had time to get married."
His second remark followed half a minute
later.
"I see how it was," he said; "you were sit-
ting in this chair, and looking at that crystal
ball, which focussed the level rays of the set-
ting sun, I suppose? Then it is plain enough
—you hypnotized yourself!"
"I have heard that such a thing is possible,"
responded Cosmo.
"Possible?" Stuyvesant returned, "it is cer-
tain! But what is more curious is the new way
in which you combined your self-hypnotism
with crystal-gazing. You have heard of scry-
ing, I suppose?"


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 83
"You mean the practice of looking into a
drop of water or a crystal ball or anything of
that sort," said Cosmo, "and of seeing things
in it—of seeing people moving about?"
"That's just what I do mean," his friend
returned. "And that's just what you have
been doing. You fixed your gaze on the ball,
and so hypnotized yourself; and then, in the
intensity of your vision, you were able to see
figures in the crystal—with one of which vis-
ualized emanations you immediately identified
yourself. That's easy enough, I think. But
I don't see what suggested to you your separate
experiences. I recognize them, of course—"
"You recognize them?" cried "Waynflete,
in wonder.
"I can tell you where you borrowed every
one of your adventures," Stuyvesant replied,
"But what I'd like to know now is what sug-
gested to you just those particular characters
and situations, and not any of the many oth-
ers also stored away in your subconsciousness."
So saying, he began to look about the room.
"My subconsciousness?" repeated Wayn-
flete. "Have I ever been a samurai in my
subconsciousness?"


84 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
Paul Stuyvesant looked at Cosmo Wayn-
flete for nearly a minute without reply. Then
all the answer he made was to say: "That's a
queer dressing-gown you have on."
"It is time I took it off," said the other, as
he twisted himself out of its clinging folds.
"It is a beautiful specimen of weaving, isn't
it? I call it the dream-gown of the Japanese
ambassador, for although I bought it in a curi-
osity-shop in Nuremberg, it was once, I really
believe, the slumber-robe of an Oriental en-
voy."
Stuyvesant took the silken garment from his
friend's hand.
"Why did the Japanese ambassador sell
you his dream-gown in a Nuremberg curios-
ity-shop?" he asked.
"He didn't," Waynflete explained. "I nev-
er saw the ambassador, and neither did the old
German lady who kept the shop. She told me
she bought it from a Japanese acrobat who was
out of an engagement and desperately hard up.
But she told me also that the acrobat had told
her that the garment had belonged to an am-
bassador who had given it to him as a reward
of his skill, and that he never would have


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 85
parted with it if he had not been dead-
broke."
Stuyvesant held the robe up to the light
and inspected the embroidery on the skirt of it.
"Yes," he said, at last, " this would account
for it, I suppose. This bit here was probably
meant to suggest 'the well where the head
was washed,'—see?"
"I see that those lines may be meant to
represent the outline of a spring of water,
but I don't see what that has to do with my
dream," Waynflete answered.
"Don't you?" Stuyvesant returned. "Then
I'll show you. You had on this silk garment
embroidered here with an outline of the well
in which was washed the head of Kotsuko no
Suke, the man whom the Forty-Seven Ronins
killed. You know the story?"
"I read it in Japan, but—" began Cosmo.
"You had that story stored away in your
subconsciousness," interrupted his friend.
"And when you hypnotized yourself by peer-
ing into the crystal ball, this embroidery it
was which suggested to you to see yourself as
the hero of the tale—Oishi Kuranosuke, the
chief of the Forty-Seven Ronins, the faithful


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 87
And the third is a York shilling, one of the
coins in circulation here in New York at the
time of the Revolution—I got that one, in fact,
from the farmer who ploughed it up in a field
at Tarry town, near Sunnyside."
"Then there are three of your adventures
accounted for, Cosmo, and easily enough,"
Paul commented, with obvious satisfaction at
his own explanation. "Just as the embroidery
on the silk here suggested to you—after you
had hypnotized yourself—that you were the
chief of the Forty-Seven Ronins, so this first
coin here in turn suggested to you that you
were Rustem, the hero of the ' Epic of Kings.'
You have read the ' Shah-Nameh y "
"I remember Firdausi's poem after a fash-
ion only," Cosmo answered. "Was not Rus-
tem a Persian Hercules, so to speak?"
'• That's it precisely," the other responded,
"and he had seven labors to perform; and
you dreamed the third of them, the slaying of
the grisly dragon. For my own part, I think I
should have preferred the fourth of them, the
meeting with the lovely enchantress; but that's
neither here nor there."
"It seems to me I do recollect something


88 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
about that fight of Rustem and the strange
beast. The faithful horse's name was Rakush,
wasn't it?" asked Waynflete.
"If you can recollect the 'Shah-Nameh,'"
Stuyvesant pursued, " no doubt you can recall
also Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Custom of the
Country?' That's where you got the mid-
night duel in Lisbon and the magnanimous
mother, you know."
"No, I didn't know," the other declared.
"Well, you did, for all that," Paul went on.
"The situation is taken from one in a drama
of Calderon's, and it was much strengthened
in the taking. You may not now remember
having read the play, but the incident must
have been familiar to you, or else your subcon-
sciousness couldn't have yielded it up to you
so readily at the suggestion of the Spanish
coin, could it?"
"I did read a lot of Elizabethan drama
in my senior year at college," admitted Cos-
mo, " and this piece of Beaumont and Fletch-
er's may have been one of those I read; but I
totally fail to recall now what it was all
about."
"You won't have the cheek to declare that


DREAM-GOWN OF JAPANESE AMBASSADOR 89
you don't remember the 'Legend of Sleepy
Hollow,' will you?" asked Stuyvesant. "Very
obviously it was the adventure of Ichabod
Crane and the Headless Horseman that the
York shilling suggested to you."
"I'll admit that I do recollect Irving's story
now," the other confessed.
So the embroidery on the dream-gown gives
the first of your strange situations; and the
three others were suggested by the coins you
have been using as buttons," said Paul Stuy-
vesant. "There is only one thing now that
puzzles me: that is the country church and
the noon wedding and the beautiful bride."
And with that he turned over the folds of
the silken garment that hung over his arm.
Cosmo Waynflete hesitated a moment and a
blush mantled his cheek. Then he looked his
friend in the face and said: "I think I can ac-
count for my dreaming about her—I can ac-
count for that easily enough."
"So can I," said Paul Stuyvesant, as he
held up the photograph of a lovely American
girl that he had just found in the pocket of
the dream-gown of the Japanese ambassador.
(1896.)





THE RIVAL GHOSTS





94 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
that duty, but as the younger of two sisters
she was still the baby of the family)—the
Duchess and Baby Van Rensselaer were dis-
cussing the pleasant English voice and the
not unpleasant English accent of a manly
young lordling who was going to America
for sport. Uncle Larry and Dear Jones were
enticing each other into a bet on the ship's
run of the morrow.
"I'll give you two to one she don't make
420," said Dear Jones.
"I'll take it," answered Uncle Larry. "We
made 427 the fifth day last year." It was
Uncle Larry's seventeenth visit to Europe, and
this was therefore his thirty-fourth voyage.
"And when did you get in?" asked Baby
Van Rensselaer. "I don't care a bit about
the run, so long as we get in soon."
"We crossed the bar Sunday night, just
seven days after we left Queenstown, and we
dropped anchor off Quarantine at three o'clock
on Monday morning."
"I hope we sha'n't do that this time. I
can't seem to sleep any when the boat stops."
"I can, but I didn't," continued Uncle
Larry, " because my state-room was the most


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 95
for'ard in the boat, and the donkey-engine
that let down the anchor was right over my
head."
"So you got up and saw the sun rise over
the bay," said Dear Jones, " with the electric
lights of the city twinkling in the distance,
and the first faint flush of the dawn in the
east just over Fort Lafayette, and the rosy
tinge which spread softly upward, and—"
"Did you both come back together?" asked
the Duchess.
"Because he has crossed thirty-four times
you must not suppose he has a monopoly in
sunrises," retorted Dear Jones. "No; this
was my own sunrise ; and a mighty pretty one
it was too."
"I'm not matching sunrises with you," re-
marked Uncle Larry calmly; "but I'm will-
ing to back a merry jest called forth by
my sunrise against any two merry jests called
forth by yours."
"I confess reluctantly that my sunrise
evoked no merry jest at all." Dear Jones
was an honest man, and would scorn to in-
vent a merry jest on the spur of the mo-
ment.


96 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"That's where my sunrise has the call,"
said Uncle Larry, complacently.
"What was the merry jest?" was Baby
Van Bensselaer's inquiry, the natural result of
a feminine curiosity thus artistically excited.
"Well, here it is. I was standing aft, near
a patriotic American and a wandering Irish-
man, and the patriotic American rashly de-
clared that you couldn't see a sunrise like that
anywhere in Europe, and this gave the Irish-
man his chance, and he said, 'Sure ye don't
have 'm here till we're through with 'em over
there.'"
"It is true," said Dear Jones, thoughtfully,
"that they do have some things over there
better than we do; for instance, umbrellas."
"And gowns," added the Duchess.
"And antiquities"—this was Uncle Larry's
contribution.
"And we do have some things so much
better in America!" protested Baby Van Rens-
selaer, as yet uncorrupted by any worship of
the effete monarchies of despotic Europe.
"We make lots of things a great deal nicer
than you can get them in Europe—especially
ice-cream."


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 97
"And pretty girls," added Dear Jones; but
he did not look at her.
"And spooks," remarked Uncle Larry, casu-
ally.
"Spooks?" queried the Duchess.
"Spooks. I maintain the word. Ghost, if
you like that better, or spectres. "We turn out
the best quality of spook—"
"You forget the lovely ghost stories about
the Rhine and the Black Forest," interrupted
Miss Van Rensselaer, with feminine inconsist-
ency.
"I remember the Rhine and the Black
Forest and all the other haunts of elves and
fairies and hobgoblins; but for good, honest
spooks there is no place like home. And
what differentiates our spook—spiritus Ameri-
cans—from the ordinary ghost of literature
is that it responds to the American sense of
humor. Take Irving's stories, for example.
The 'Headless Horseman' — that's a comic
ghost story. And Rip Van Winkle—consider
what humor, and what good humor, there is
in the telling of his meeting with the goblin
crew of Hendrik Hudson's men! A still bet-
ter example of this American way of dealing


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 99
about twenty he lost both of his parents.
His father left him enough money to give
him a start, and a strong feeling of pride in
his Scotch birth; you see there was a title in
the family in Scotland, and although Eliph-
alet's father was the younger son of a young-
er son, yet he always remembered, and always
bade his only son to remember, that this an-
cestry was noble. His mother left him her
full share of Yankee grit and a little old house
in Salem which had belonged to her family
for more than two hundred years. She was a
Hitchcock, and the Hitchcocks had been set-
tled in Salem since the year 1. It was a great-
great-grandfather of Mr. Eliphalet Hitchcock
who was foremost in the time of the Salem
witchcraft craze. And this little old house
which she left to my friend Eliphalet Duncan
was haunted."
"By the ghost of one of the witches, of
course?" interrupted Dear Jones.
"Now how could it be the ghost of a witch,
since the witches were all burned at the stake?
You never heard of anybody who was burned
having a ghost, did you?" asked Uncle Larry.
"That's an argument in favor of cremation,
833310


100 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
at any rate," replied Dear Jones, evading the
direct question.
"It is, if you don't like ghosts. I do," said
Baby Van Rensselaer.
"And so do I," added Uncle Larry. "I love
a ghost as dearly as an Englishman loves a
lord."
"Go on with your story," said the Duchess,
majestically overruling all extraneous discus-
sion.
"This little old house at Salem was haunt-
ed," resumed Uncle Larry. "And by a very
distinguished ghost—or at least by a ghost
with very remarkable attributes."
"What was he like?" asked Baby Van
Rensselaer, with a premonitory shiver of an-
ticipatory delight.
"It had a lot of peculiarities. In the first
place, it never appeared to the master of the
house. Mostly it confined its visitations to
unwelcome guests. In the course of the last
hundred years it had frightened away four
successive mothers-in-law,,while never intrud-
ing on the head of the household."
"I guess that ghost had been one of the
boys when he was alive and in the flesh."


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 101
This was Dear Jones's contribution to the tell-
ing of the tale.
"In the second place," continued Uncle
Larry, "it never frightened anybody the first
time it appeared. Only on the second visit
were the ghost - seers scared; but then they
were scared enough for twice, and they rarely
mustered up courage enough to risk a third in-
terview. One of the most curious character-
istics of this well-meaning spook was that it
had no face—or at least that nobody ever saw
its face."
"Perhaps he kept his countenance veiled?"
queried the Duchess, who was beginning to
remember that she never did like ghost stories.
"That was what I was never able to find
out. I have asked several people who saw the
ghost, and none of them could tell me any-
thing about its face, and yet while in its pres-
ence they never noticed its features, and never
remarked on their absence or concealment. It
was only afterwards when they tried to recall
calmly all the circumstances of meeting with
the mysterious stranger that they became
aware that they had not seen its face. And
they could not say whether the features were


102 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
covered, or whether they were wanting, or
what the trouble was. They knew only that
the face was never seen. And no matter how
often they might see it, they never fathomed
this mystery. To this day nobody knows
whether the ghost which used to haunt the
little old house in Salem had a face, or what
manner of face it had."
"How awfully weird!" said Baby Van
Rensselaer. "And why did the ghost go
away?"
"I haven't said it went away," answered
Uncle Larry, with much dignity.
"But you said it used to haunt the little old
house at Salem, so I supposed it had moved.
Didn't it?" the young lady asked.
"You shall be told in due time. Eliphalet
Duncan used to spend most of his summer va-
cations at Salem, and the ghost never bothered
him at all, for he was the master of the house
'—much to his disgust, too, because he wanted
to see for himself the mysterious tenant at will
of his property. But he never saw it, never.
He arranged with friends to call him when-
ever it might appear, and he slept in the next
room with the door open; and yet when their


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 103
frightened cries waked him the ghost was
gone, and his only reward was to hear re-
proachful sighs as soon as he went back to
bed. You see, the ghost thought it was not
fair of Eliphalet to seek an introduction which
was plainly unwelcome."
Dear Jones interrupted the story-teller by
getting up and tucking a heavy rug more
snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for
the sky was now overcast and gray, and the
air was damp and penetrating.
"One fine spring morning," pursued Uncle
Larry, " Eliphalet Duncan received great news.
I told you that there was a title in the family
in Scotland, and that Eliphalet's father was
the younger son of a younger son. Well, it
happened that all Eliphalet's father's brothers
and uncles had died off without male issue ex-
cept the eldest son of the eldest son, and he, of
course, bore the title, and was Baron Duncan
of Duncan. Now the great news that Elipha-
let Duncan received in New York one fine
spring morning was that Baron Duncan and
his only son had been yachting in the Hebri-
des, and they had been caught in a black
squall, and they were both dead. So my


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 105
But Eliphalet was a sight too smart to put
'Baron Duncan of Duncan, Attorney and
Counsellor at Law,' on his shingle."
"What has all this got to do with your
ghost?" asked Dear Jones, pertinently.
"Nothing with that ghost, but a good deal
with another ghost. Eliphalet was very
learned in spirit lore—perhaps because he
owned the haunted house at Salem, perhaps
because he was a Scotchman by descent. At
all events, he had made a special study of the
wraiths and white ladies and banshees and
bogies of all kinds whose sayings and doings
and warnings are recorded in the annals of
the Scottish nobility. In fact, he was ac-
quainted with the habits of every reputable
spook in the Scotch peerage. And he knew
that there was a Duncan ghost attached to
the person of the holder of the title of Baron
Duncan of Duncan."
"So, besides being the owner of a haunted
house in Salem, he was also a haunted man
in Scotland?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Just so. But the Scotch ghost was not
unpleasant, like the Salem ghost, although it
had one peculiarity in common with its trans-


106 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
atlantic fello-spook. It never appeared to
the holder of the title, just as the other never
was visible to the owner of the house. In
fact, the Duncan ghost was never seen at all.
It was a guardian angel only. Its sole duty
was to be in personal attendance on Baron
Duncan of Duncan, and to warn him of im-
pending evil. The traditions of the house
told that the Barons of Duncan had again and
again felt a premonition of ill fortune. Some
of them had yielded and withdrawn from the
venture they had undertaken, and it had
failed dismally. Some had been obstinate,
and had hardened their hearts, and had gone
on reckless to defeat and to death. In no
case had a Lord Duncan been exposed to peril
without fair warning."
"Then how came it that the father and son
were lost in the yacht off the Hebrides?'' asked
Dear Jones.
"Because they were too enlightened to
yield to superstition. There is extant now a
letter of Lord Duncan, written to his wife a
few minutes before he and his son set sail, in
which he tells her how hard he has had to
struggle with an almost overmastering desire


THE BIVAL GHOSTS 107
to give up the trip. Had he obeyed the
friendly warning of the family ghost, the
letter would have been spared a journey
across the Atlantic."
"Did the ghost leave Scotland for America
as soon as the old baron died?" asked Baby
Van Rensselaer, with much interest.
"How did he come over," queried Dear
Jones — " in the steerage, or as a cabin pas-
senger?"
"I don't know," answered Uncle Larry;
calmly, "and Eliphalet didn't know. For as
he was in no danger, and stood in no need
of warning, he couldn't tell whether the ghost
was on duty or not. Of course he was on the
watch for it all the time. But he never got
any proof of its presence until he went down
to the little old house of Salem, just before
the Fourth of July. He took a friend down
with him—a young fellow who had been in
the regular army since the day Fort Sumter
was fired on, and who thought that after four
years of the little unpleasantness down South,
including six months in Libby, and after ten
years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains,
he wasn't likely to be much frightened by a


108 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out
on the porch all the evening smoking and
talking over points in military law. A little
after twelve o'clock, just as they began to
think it was about time to turn in, they heard
the most ghastly noise in the house. It wasn't
a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they
could put a name to. It was an undetermin-
ate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of sound,
which went wailing out of the window. The
officer had been at Cold Harbor, but he felt
himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet
knew it was the ghost who haunted the house.
As this weird sound died away, it was followed
by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its
intensity. Something in this cry seemed fa-
miliar to Eliphalet, and he felt sure that it pro-
ceeded from the family ghost, the warning
wraith of the Duncans."
"Do I understand you to intimate that both
ghosts were there together?" inquired the
Duchess, anxiously.
"Both of them were there," answered Uncle
Larry. "You see, one of them belonged to
the house, and had to be there all the time,
and the other was attached to the person of


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 109
Baron Duncan, and had to follow him there;
wherever he was, there was that ghost also.
But Eliphalet, he had scarcely time to think
this out when he heard both sounds again, not
one after another, but both together, and some-
thing told him—some sort of an instinct he
had—that those two ghosts didn't agree, didn't
get on together, didn't exactly hit it off; in
fact, that they were quarrelling."
"Quarrelling ghosts! Well, I never!" was
Baby Van Rensselaer's remark.
"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell
together in unity," said Dear Jones.
And the Duchess added, " It would certain-
ly be setting a better example."
"You know," resumed Uncle Larry, " that
two waves of light or of sound may interfere
and produce darkness or silence. So it was
with these rival spooks. They interfered, but
they did not produce silence or darkness. On
the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the offi-
cer went into the house, there began at once a
series of spiritualistic manifestations—a regular
dark seance. A tambourine was played upon,
a bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went sing-
ing around the room."


110 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"Where did they get the banjo?" asked
Dear Jones, sceptically.
"I don't know. Materialized it, maybe, just
as they did the tambourine. You don't sup-
pose a quiet New York lawyer kept a stock of
musical instruments large enough to fit out a
strolling minstrel troupe just on the chance of
a pair of ghosts coming to give him a surprise
party, do you? Every spook has its own in-
strument of torture. Angels play on harps,
I'm informed, and spirits delight in banjos and
tambourines. These spooks of Eliphalet Dun-
can's were ghosts with all modern improve-
ments, and I guess they were capable of pro-
viding their own musical weapons. At all
events, they had them there in the little old
house at Salem the night Eliphalet and his
friend came down. And they played on them,
and they rang the bell, and they rapped here,
there, and everywhere. And they kept it up
all night."
"All night?" asked the awe-stricken Duch-
ess,
"All night long," said Uncle Larry, solemnly;
"and the next night too. Eliphalet did not
get a wink of sleep, neither did his friend. On


113 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
wants to sleep nights, and they wouldn't let
him sleep nights. They kept on wrangling
and quarrelling incessantly; they manifested
and they dark-seanced as regularly as the old
clock on the stairs struck twelve; they rapped
and they rang bells and they banged the tam-
bourine and they threw the flaming banjo
about the house, and, worse than all, they
swore."
"I did not know that spirits were addicted
to bad language," said the Duchess.
"How did he know they were swear-
ing? Could he hear them?" asked Dear
Jones.
"That was just it," responded Uncle Larry;
"he could not hear them—at least, not dis-
tinctly. There were inarticulate murmurs and
stifled rumblings. But the impression pro-
duced on him was that they were swearing.
If they had only sworn right out, he would
not have minded it so much, because he would
have known the worst. But the feeling that
the air was full of suppressed profanity was
very wearing, and after standing it for a week
he gave up in disgust and went to the White
Mountains."


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 113
"Leaving them to fight it out, I suppose,"
interjected Baby Van Rensselaer.
"Not at all," explained Uncle Larry. "They
could not quarrel unless he was present. You
see, he could not leave the titular ghost behind
him, and the domiciliary ghost could not leave
the house. When he went away he took the
family ghost with him, leaving the house ghost
behind. Now spooks can't quarrel when they
are a hundred miles apart any more than men
can."
"And what happened afterwards?" asked
Baby Van Rensselaer, with a pretty impatience.
"A most marvellojs thing happened. Eliph-
alet Duncan went to the White Mountains,
and in the car of the railroad that runs to the
top of Mount Washington he met a classmate
whom he had not seen for years, and this class-
mate introduced Duncan to his sister, and this
sister was a remarkably pretty girl, and Dun-
can fell in love with her at first sight, and by
the time he got to the top of Mount Washing-
ton he was so deep in love that he began to
consider his own unworthiness, and to wonder
whether she might ever be induced to care
for him a little—ever so little."
8


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 115
with them, and filled out the quartette. Be-
fore the end of the summer he began to think
about proposing. Of course he had lots of
chances, going on excursions as they were
every day. He made up his mind to seize the
first opportunity, and that very evening he
took her out for a moonlight row on Lake
Winipiseogee. As he handed her into the
boat he resolved to do it, and he had a glim-
mer of a suspicion that she knew he was going
to do it, too."
"Girls," said Dear Jones, "never go out
in a row-boat at night with a young man un-
less you mean to accept him.1'
"Sometimes it's best to refuse him, and
get it over once for all," said Baby Van Rens-
selaer, impersonally.
"As Eliphalet took the oars he felt a sudden
chill. He tried to shake it off, but in vain.
He began to have a growing consciousness of
impending evil. Before he had taken ten
strokes—and he was a swift oarsman—he was
aware of a mysterious presence between him
and Miss Sutton."
"Was it the guardian-angel ghost warning
him off the match?" interrupted Dear Jones.


116 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"That's just what it was," said Uncle Lar-
ry. "And he yielded to it, and kept his peace,
and rowed Miss Sutton back to the hotel with
his proposal unspoken."
"More fool he," said Dear Jones. "It will
take more than one ghost to keep me from
proposing when my mind is made up." And
he looked at Baby Van Rensselaer.
"The next morning," continued Uncle Larry,
"Eliphalet overslept himself, and when he went
down to a late breakfast he found that the
Suttons had gone to New York by the morning
train. He wanted to follow them at once, and
again he felt the mysterious presence over-
powering his will. He struggled two days,
and at last he roused himself to do what he
wanted in spite of the spook. When he arrived
in New York it was late in the evening. He
dressed himself hastily, and went to the hotel
where the Suttons were, in the hope of seeing
at least her brother. The guardian angel fought
every inch of the walk with him, until he began
to wonder whether, if Miss Sutton were to take
him, the spook would forbid the banns. At
the hotel he saw no one that night, and he
went home determined to call as early as he


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 117
could the next afternoon, and make an end of
it. When he left his office about two o'clock
the next day to learn his fate, he had not
walked five blocks before he discovered that
the wraith of the Duncans had withdrawn his
opposition to the suit. There was no feeling
of impending evil, no resistance, no struggle,
no consciousness of an opposing presence.
Eliphalet was greatly encouraged. He walked
briskly to the hotel; he found Miss Sutton
alone. He asked her the question, and got his
answer."
"She accepted him, of course?" said Baby
Van Rensselaer.
"Of course," said Uncle Larry. "And while
they were in the first flush of joy, swapping
confidences and confessions, her brother came
into the parlor with an expression of pain on
his face and a telegram in his hand. The for-
mer was caused by the latter, which was from
Frisco, and which announced the sudden death
of Mrs. Sutton, their mother."
"And that was why the ghost no longer
opposed the match ?" questioned Dear Jones.
"Exactly. You see, the family ghost knew
that Mother Gorgon was an awful obstacle to


118 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
Duncan's happiness, so it warned him. But
the moment the obstacle was removed, it gave
its consent at once."
The fog was lowering its thick, damp curtain,
and it was beginning to be difficult to see from
one end of the boat to the other. Dear Jones
tightened the rug which enwrapped Baby Van
Eensselaer, and then withdrew again into his
own substantial coverings.
Uncle Larry paused in his story long enough
to light another of the tiny cigars he always
smoked.
"I infer that Lord Duncan "—the Duchess
was scrupulous in the bestowal of titles—" saw
no more of the ghosts after he was married." "He never saw them at all, at any time,
either before or since. But they came very
near breaking off the match, and thus breaking
two young hearts."
"You don't mean to say that they knew any
just cause or impediment why they should not
forever after hold their peace?" asked Dear
Jones.
"How could a ghost, or even two ghosts,
keep a girl from marrying the man she loved?"
This was Baby Van Rensselaer's question.


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 119
"It seems curious, doesn't it?" and Uncle
Larry tried to warm himself by two or three
sharp pulls at his fiery little cigar. "And the
circumstances are quite as curious as the fact
itself. You see, Miss Sutton wouldn't be mar-
ried for a year after her mother's death, so she
and Duncan had lots of time to tell each oth-
er all they knew. Eliphalet got to know a
good deal about the girls she went to school
with; and Kitty soon learned all about his
family. He didn't tell her about the title for
a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But he
described to her the little old house at Salem.
And one evening towards the end of the sum-
mer, the wedding-day having been appointed
for early in September, she told him that she
didn't want a bridal tour at all; she just wanted
to go down to the little old house at Salem to
spend her honeymoon in peace and quiet, with
nothing to do and nobody to bother them.
Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion: it
suited him down to the ground. All of a sud-
den he remembered the spooks, and it knocked
him all of a heap. He had told her about the
Duncan banshee, and the idea of having an
ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her


120 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
husband tickled her immensely. But he had
never said anything about the ghost which
haunted the little old house at Salem. He
knew she would be frightened out of her wits
if the house ghost revealed itself to her, and
he saw at once that it would be impossible to
go to Salem on their wedding trip. So he told
her all about it, and how whenever he went to
Salem the two ghosts interfered, and gave
dark seances and manifested and materialized
and made the place absolutely impossible.
Kitty listened in silence, and Eliphalet thought
she had changed her mind. But she hadn't
done anything of the kind."
"Just like a man—to think she was going
to," remarked Baby Van Rensselaer.
"She just told him she could not bear
ghosts herself, but she would not marry a
man who was afraid of them."
"Just like a girl—to be so inconsistent,"
remarked Dear Jones.
Uncle Larry's tiny cigar had long been ex-
tinct. He lighted a new one, and continued:
"Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her
mind was made up. She was determined to
pass her honeymoon in the little old house at


THE UIVAL GHOSTS 121
Salem, and she was equally determined not to
go there as long as there were any ghosts there.
Until he could assure her that the spectral
tenant had received notice to quit, and that
there was no danger of manifestations and
materializing, she refused to be married at all.
She did not intend to have her honeymoon
interrupted by two wrangling ghosts, and the
wedding could be postponed until he had
made ready the house for her."
"She was an unreasonable young woman,"
said the Duchess.
"Well, that's what Eliphalet thought, much
as he was in love with her. And he believed
he could talk her out of her determination.
But he couldn't. She was set. And when a
girl is set, there's nothing to do but to yield
to the inevitable. And that's just what Eliph-
alet did. He saw he would either have to
give her up or to get the ghosts out; and as
he loved her and did not care for the ghosts,
he resolved to tackle the ghosts. He had
clear grit, Eliphalet had—he was half Scotch
and half Yankee, and neither breed turns tail
in a hurry. So he made his plans and he
went down to Salem. As he said good-bye to


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 123
sipated spook, a spook with delirium tremens,
might be committed to the inebriate asylum.
But none of these things seemed feasible."
"What did he do?" interrupted Dear Jones.
"The learned counsel will please speak to the
point."
"You will regret this unseemly haste," said
Uncle Larry, gravely, " when you know what
really happened."
"What was it, Uncle Larry?" asked Baby
Van Rensselaer. "I'm all impatience."
And Uncle Larry proceeded:
"Elipbalet went down to the little old
house at Salem, and as soon as the clock struck
twelve the rival ghosts began wrangling as
before. Raps here, there, and everywhere,
ringing bells, banging tambourines, strumming
banjos sailing about the room, and all the
other manifestations and materializations fol-
lowed one another just as they had the sum-
mer before. The only difference Eliphalet
could detect was a stronger flavor in the
spectral profanity; and this, of course, was
only a vague impression, for he did not ac-
tually hear a single word. He waited awhile
in patience, listening and watching. Of course


124 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
he never saw either of the ghosts, because
neither of them could appear to him. At last
he got his dander up, and he thought it was
about time to interfere, so he rapped on the
table, and asked for silence. As soon as he felt
that the spooks were listening to him he ex-
plained the situation to them. He told them
he was in love, and that he could not marry
unless they vacated the house. He appealed
to them as old friends, and he laid claim to
their gratitude. The titular ghost had been
sheltered by the Duncan family for hundreds
of years, and the domiciliary ghost had had
free lodging in the little old house at Salem for
nearly two centuries. He implored them to
settle their differences, and to get him out of
his difficulty at once. He suggested that they
had better fight it out then and there, and see
who was master. He had brought down with
him all needful weapons. And he pulled out
his valise, and spread on the table a pair of
navy revolvers, a pair of shot-guns, a pair of
duelling-swords, and a couple of bowie-knives.
He offered to serve as second for both parties,
and to give the word when to begin. He also
took out of his valise a pack of cards and a


INTALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
blood could draw his sword against a woman.
Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the
Duncan ghost should raise his hand against a
woman, and all he wanted was that the
Duncan ghost should fight the other ghost.
And then the voice told Eliphalet that the
other ghost was a woman."
"What?" said Dear Jones, sitting up sud-
denly. "You don't mean to tell me that the
ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"
"Those were the very words Eliphalet Dun-
can used," said Uncle Larry; "but he did not
need to wait for the answer. All at once he
recalled the traditions about the domiciliary
ghost, and he knew that what the titular
ghost said was the fact. He had never thought
of the sex of a spook, but there was no doubt
whatever that the house ghost was a woman.
No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet's
mind than he saw his way out of the difficulty.
The ghosts must be married!—for then there
would be no more interference, no more quar-
relling, no more manifestations and material-
izations, no more dark seances, with their raps
and bells and tambourines and banjos. At
first the ghosts would not hear of it. The


THE RIVAL GHOSTS 127
voice in the corner declared that the Duncan
wraith had never thought of matrimony. But
Eliphalet argued with them, and pleaded and
pursuaded and coaxed, and dwelt on the ad-
vantages of matrimony. He had to confess,
of course, that he did not know how to get a
clergyman to marry them ; but the voice from
the corner gravely told him that there need be
no difficulty in regard to that, as there was no
lack of spiritual chaplains. Then, for the first
time, the house ghost spoke, a low, clear,
gentle voice, and with a quaint, old-fashioned
New England accent, which contrasted sharp-
ly with the broad Scotch speech of the family
ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan seemed
to have forgotten that she was married. But
this did not upset Eliphalet at all; he remem-
bered the whole case clearly, and he told her
she was not a married ghost, but a widow,
since her husband had been hanged for murder-
ing her. Then the Duncan ghost drew atten-
tion to the great disparity in their ages, say-
ing that he was nearly four hundred and fifty
years old, while she was barely two hundred.
But Eliphalet had not talked to juries for
nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxed those


SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTH-
DAY


SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTH-
DAY

HILE the journalist deftly dealt with
the lobster d la Newburg, as it bub-
bled in the chafing-dish before him,
the deep-toned bell of the church
at the corner began to strike twelve.
"Give me your plates, quick," he said," and
we'll drink Jack's health before it's to-morrow."
The artist and the soldier and the professor
of mathematics did as they were told; and then
they filled their glasses.
The journalist, still standing, looked the sol-
dier in the eye, and said: "Jack, this is the first
time The Quartet has met since the old school-
days, ten years ago and more. That this reun-
ion should take place on your birthday doubles
the pleasure of the occasion. We wish you
many happy returns of the day!"


SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 133
see ' the week of the four Thursdays,' as the
French say."
"And we sha'n't see that for a month of Sun-
days, I guess," the journalist rejoined.
There was a moment of silence, and then the
mathematician spoke for the first time.
"A quadruplex birthday will be odd enough,
I grant you," he began," but I don't think it
quite as remarkable as the case of the lady who
had no birthday for sixteen years after she was
born."
The soldier and the artist and the journalist
all looked at the professor of mathematics, and
they all smiled; but his face remained perfect-
ly grave.
"What's that you say ?" asked the journal-
ist. "Sixteen years without a birthday? Isn't
that a very large order?"
"Did you know the lady herself?" inquired
the soldier.
"She was my grandmother," the mathema-
tician answered. "She had no birthday for the
first sixteen years of her life."
"You mean that she did not celebrate her
birthdays, I suppose," the artist remarked.
"That's nothing. I know lots of families


SIXTEEN YEARS WITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 135
.
"I don't see that at all," exclaimed the
artist.
"It's easy enough," the soldier explained.
"The year 1800 isn't a leap-year, you know.
We have a leap-year every four years, except
the final year of a century—1700,1800,1900."
"I didn't know that," said the artist.
"I'd forgotten it," remarked the journalist.
"But that gets us over only half of the diffi-
culty. He says his grandmother didn't have a
birthday till she was sixteen. We can all see
now how it was she went without this annual
luxury for the first eight years. But who
robbed her of the birthdays she was entitled
to when she was eight and twelve. That's what
I want to know."
"Born February 29,1796, the Gregorian cal-
endar deprives her of a birthday in 1800," the
soldier said. "But she ought to have had her
first chance, February 29, 1804. I don't see
how—" and he paused in doubt. "Oh!" he
cried, suddenly; "where was she living in
1804?"
"Most of the time in Russia," the mathema-
tician answered. "Although the family went
to England for a few days early in the year."


138 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"What was the date when they left Rus-
sia?" asked the soldier, eagerly.
"They sailed from St. Petersburg in a Rus-
sian bark on the 10th of February," answered
the professor of mathematics, "and owing to
head-winds they did not reach England for a
fortnight."
"Exactly," cried the soldier. "That's what
I thought. That accounts for it."
"I don't see how," the artist declared; "that
is, unless you mean to suggest that the Czar
confiscated the little American girl's birthday
and sent it to Siberia."
"It's plain enough," the soldier returned.
"We have the reformed calendar, the Grego-
rian calendar, you know, and the Russians
haven't. They keep the old Julian calendar,
and it's now ten days behind ours. They cele-
brate Christmas three days after we have be-
gun the new year. So if the little girl left St.
Petersburg in a Russian ship on February 10,
1804, by the old reckoning, and was on the wa-
ter two weeks, she would land in England af-
ter March 1st by the new calendar."
"That is to say," the artist inquired," the lit-
tle girl came into an English port thinking she


SIXTEEN YEARSWITHOUT A BIRTHDAY 137
was going to have her birthday the next week,
and when she set foot on shore she found out
that her birthday was passed the week before.
Is that what you mean?"
"Yes," answered the soldier; and the math-
ematician nodded also.
"Then all I have to say," the artist contin-
ued, " is that it was a mean trick to play on a
child that had been looking forward to her first
birthday for eight years — to knock her into
the middle of next week in that fashion!"
"And she had to go four years more for her
next chance," said the journalist. "Then she
would be twelve. But you said she hadn't a
birthday till she was sixteen. How did she
lose the one she was entitled to in 1808? She
wasn't on a Russian ship again, was she?"
"No," the mathematician replied; "she was
on an American ship that time."
"On the North Sea?" asked the artist.
"No," was the calm answer; "on thePacific."
"Sailing east or west ?" cried the soldier.
"Sailing east," answered the professor of
mathematics, smiling again.
"Then I see how it might happen," the sol-
dier declared.


138 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"Well, I don't," confessed the artist.
The journalist said nothing, as it seemed un-
professional to admit ignorance of anything.
"It is simple enough," the soldier explained.
"You see, the world is revolving about the sun
steadily, and it is always high noon somewhere
on the globe. The day rolls round unceasing,
and it is not cut off into twenty-four hours.
We happen to have taken the day of Green-
wich or Paris as the day of civilization, and
we say that it begins earlier in China and later
in California; but it is all the same day, we
say. Therefore there has to be some place out
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where we
lose or gain a day—if we are going east, we
gain it; if we are going west, we lose it. Now
I suppose this little girl of twelve was on her
way from some Asiatic port to some Ameri-
can port, and they stopped on their voyage at
Honolulu. Perhaps they dropped anchor there
just before midnight on their February 28,
1808, thinking that the morrow would be the
29th; but when they were hailed from the
shore, just after midnight, they found out that
it was already March 1st."
As the soldier finished, he looked at the


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE

| TIE telegraph messenger looked
again at the address on the envel-
ope in his hand, and then scanned
the house before which he was
standing. It was an old-fashioned building of
brick, two stories high, with an attic above;
and it stood in an old-fashioned part of lower
New York, not far from the East River. Over
the wide archway there was a small weather-
worn sign, " Itamapo Steel and Iron Works ;"
and over the smaller door alongside was a still
smaller sign, "Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co."
When the messenger-boy had made out the
name, he opened this smaller door and entered
the long, narrow store. Its sides and walls
were covered with bins and racks containing


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 145
father, took the messenger's book, and, glan-
cing at an old-fashioned clock which stood in
the corner, he wrote the name of the firm and
the hour of delivery. He was watching the
messenger go out. His attention was suddenly
called to subjects of more importance by a
sharp exclamation from his father.
"Well, well, well," said the elder Whittier
with his eyes fixed on the telegram he had just
read. "This is very strange—very strange
indeed!"
"What's strange ?" asked the third occupant
of the office, Mr. Wheatcroft, a short, stout,
irascible-looking man with a shock of grizzly
hair.
For all answer Mr. Whittier handed to Mr.
Wheatcroft the thin slip of paper.
No sooner had the junior partner read the
paper than he seemed angrier than was usual
with him.
"Strange!" he cried. "I should think it was
strange! confoundedly strange—and deuced
unpleasant, too."
"May I see what it is that's so very strange?"
asked Paul, picking up the despatch.
"Of course you may see it," growled Mr.
10


146 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
Wheatcroft; "and let us see what you can
make of it."
The young man read the message aloud:
"Deal off. Can get quarter cent better terms.
Carkendale."
Then he read it again to himself. At last
he said, " I confess I don't see anything so very
mysterious in that. We've lost a contract, I
suppose; but that must have happened lots of
times before, hasn't it?"
"It's happened twice before, this fall," re-
turned Mr. Wheatcroft, fiercely, "after our bid
had been practically accepted and just before
the signing of the final contract!"
"Let me explain, Wheatcroft," interrupted
the elder Whittier, gently. "You must not
expect my son to understand the ins and outs
of this business as we do. Besides, he has only
been in the office ten days."
"I don't expect him to understand," growled
Wheatcroft. "How could he? I don't under-
stand it myself!"
"Close that door, Paul," said Mr. Whittier.
"I don't want any of the clerks to know what
we are talking about. Here are the facts in
the case, and I think you will admit that they


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 147
are certainly curious: Twice this fall, and now
a third time, we have been the lowest bidders
for important orders, and yet, just before our
bid was formally accepted, somebody has cut
under us by a fraction of a cent and got the
job. First we thought we were going to get
the building of the Barataria Central's bridge
over the Little Makintosh River, but in the end
it was the Tuxedo Steel Company that got
the contract. Then there was the order for
the fifty thousand miles of wire for the Trans-
continental Telegraph; we made an extraor-
dinarily low estimate on that. We wanted
the contract, and we threw off, not only our
profit, but even allowances for office expenses;
and yet five minutes before the last bid had to
be in, the Tuxedo Company put in an offer
only a hundred and twenty-five dollars less
than ours. Now comes the telegram to-day.
The Methuselah Life Insurance Company is go-
ing to put up a big building; we were asked to
estimate on the steel framework. We wanted
that work—times are hard and there is little
doing, as you know, and we must get work for
our men if we can. We meant to have this
contract if we could. We offered to do it at


148 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
what was really actual cost of manufacture—
without profit, first of all, and then without
any charge at all for office expenses, for in-
terest on capital, for depreciation of plant. The
vice-president of the Methuselah, the one who
attends to all their real estate, is Mr. Carken-
dale. He told me yesterday that our bid was
very low, and that we were certain to get the
contract. And now he sends me this." Mr.
Whittier picked up the telegram again.
"But if we were going to do it at actual cost
of manufacture," said the young man, "and
somebody else underbids us, isn't somebody
else losing money on the job?"
"That's no sort of satisfaction to our men,"
retorted Mr. Wheatcroft, cooking himself
before the fire. "Somebody else—confound
himI-- will be able to keep his men together
and to give them the wages we want for our
men. Do you think somebody else is the
Tuxedo Company again?"
"What of it ?" asked Mr. Whittier. "Surely
you don't suppose—"
"Yes, I do," interrupted Mr. Wheatcroft,
swiftly. "I do, indeed. I haven't been in
this business thirty years for nothing. I know


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 149
how hungry we get at all times for a big, fat
contract; and I know we would any of us
give a hundred dollars to the man who could
tell us what our chief rival has bid. It would
be the cheapest purchase of the year, too."
"Come, come, Wheatcroft," said the elder
Whittier; "you know we've never done any-
thing of that sort yet, and I think you and
I are too old to be tempted now."
"Nothing of the sort," snorted the fiery
little man; " I'm open to temptation this very
moment. If I could know what the Tuxedo
people are going to bid on the new steel rails
of the Springfield and Athens, I'd give a thou-
sand dollars."
"If I understand you, Mr. Wheatcroft," Paul
Whittier asked, " you are suggesting that there
has been something done that is not fair?"
"That's just what I mean," Mr. Wheatcroft
declared, vehemently.
"Do you mean to say that the Tuxedo peo-
ple have somehow been made acquainted with
our bids ?" asked the young man.
"That's what I'm thinking now," was the
sharp answer. "I can't think of anything else.
For two months we haven't been successful


150 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
in getting a single one of the big contracts.
We've had our share of the little things, of
course, but they don't amount to much. The
big things that we really wanted have slipped
through our fingers. We've lost them by the
skin of our teeth every time. That isn't ac-
cident, is it? Of course not! Then there's
only one explanation—there's a leak in this
office somewhere."
"You don't suspect any of the clerks, do
you, Mr. Wheatcroft?" asked the elder Whit-
tier, sadly.
"I don't suspect anybody in particular," re-
turned the junior partner, brushing his hair
up the wrong way; "and I suspect everybody
in general. I haven't an idea who it is, but
it's somebody! It must be somebody—and
if it is somebody, I'll do my best to get that
somebody into the clutches of the law."
"Who makes up the bids on these important
contracts?" asked Paul.
"Wheatcroft and I," answered his father.
"The specifications are forwarded to the works,
and the engineers make their estimates of the
actual cost of labor and material. These esti-
mates are sent to us here, and we add what-


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 151
ever we think best for interest, and for ex-
penses, for wear and tear, and for profit."
"Who writes the letters making the offer—
the one with actual figures I mean?" the son
continued.
"I do," the elder Whittier explained; "I
have always done it."
"You don't dictate them to a typewriter?"
Paul pursued.
"Certainly not," the father responded; "I
write them with my own hand, and, what's
more, I take the press-copy myself, and there
is a special letter-book for such things. This
letter-book is always kept in the safe in this
office; in fact, I can say that this particular
letter-book never leaves my hands except to
go into that safe. And, as you know, nobody
has access to that safe except Wheatcroft and
me."
"And the Major," corrected the junior
partner.
"No," Mr. Whittier explained, " Van Zandt
has no need to go there now."
"But he used to," Mr. Wheatcroft persisted.
"He did once," the senior partner returned;
"but when we bought those new safes outside


152 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
there in the main office, there was no longer
any need for the chief book-keeper to go to
this smaller safe; and so, last month—it was
while you were away, Wheatcroft—Van Zandt
came in here one afternoon, and said that, as
he never had occasion to go to this safe, he
would rather not have the responsibility of
knowing the combination. I told him we had
perfect confidence in him."
"I should think so!" broke in the explosive
Wheatcroft. "The Major has been with us
for thirty years now. I'd suspect myself of
petty larceny as soon as him."
"As I said," continued the elder Whittier;
"I told him that we trusted him perfectly, of
course. But he urged me, and to please him
I changed the combination of this safe that
afternoon. You will remember, Wheatcroft,
that I gave you the new word the day you
came back."
"Yes, I remember," said Mr. Wheatcroft.
"But I don't see why the Major did not want
to know how to open that safe. Perhaps he
is beginning to feel his years now. He must
be sixty, the Major; and I've been thinking
for some time that he looks worn."


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 153
"I noticed the change in him," Paul re-
marked, "the first day I came into the office.
He seemed ten years older than he was last
winter."
"Perhaps his wound troubles him again,"
suggested Mr. Whittier. "Whatever the rea-
son, it is at his own request that he is now
ignorant of the combination. No one knows
that but Wheatcrof t and I. The letters them-
selves I wrote myself, and copied myself, and
put them myself in the envelopes I directed my-
self. I don't recall mailing them myself, but I
may have done that too. So you see that there
can't be any foundation for your belief, Wheat-
croft, that somebody had access to our bids."
"I can't believe anything else!" cried Wheat-
croft, impulsively. "I don't know how it was
done—I'm not a detective—but it was done
somehow. And if it was done, it was done by
somebody! And what I'd like to do is to catch
that somebody in the act—that's all! I'd make
it hot for him!"
"You would like to have him out at the
Uamapo Works," said Paul, smiling at the lit-
tle man's violence, "and put him under the
steam-hammer?"


154 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"Yes, I would," responded Mr. Wheatcroft.
"I would indeed! Putting a man under a
steam-hammer may seem a cruel punishment,
but I think it would cure the fellow of any
taste for prying into our business in the fut-
ure."
"I think it would get him out of the habit
of living," the elder Whittier said, as the tall
clock in the corner struck one. "But don't
let's be so brutal. Let's go to lunch and talk
the matter over quietly. I don't agree with
your suspicion, Wheatcroft, but there may be
something in it."
Five minutes later Mr. Whittier, Mr. Wheat-
croft, and the only son of the senior partner
left the glass-framed private office, and, walk-
ing leisurely through the long store, passed
into the street.
They did not notice that the old book-
keeper, Major Van Zamlt, whose high desk was
so placed that he could overlook the private
office, had been watching them ever since the
messenger had delivered the despatch. He
could not read the telegram, he could not
hear the comments, but he could see every
movement and every gesture and every ex-


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 157
—been able to be of service to the government
of the United States. All through the four
years that followed the firing on the flag in
1861 the Ramapo Works had been run day
and night. When peace came at last and the
people had leisure to expand, a large share of
the rails needed by the new overland roads
which were to bind the East and West to-
gether in iron bonds had been rolled by Whit-
tier, Wheatcroft & Co. Of late years, as Paul
knew, the old firm seemed to have lost some
of its early energy, and, having young and
vigorous competitors, it had barely held its
own.
That the Ramapo Works should once more
take the lead was Paul Whittier's solemn pur-
pose, and to this end he had been carefully
trained. He was now a young man of twen-
ty-five, a tall, handsome fellow, with a full
mustache over his firm mouth, and with clear,
quick eyes below his curly brown hair. He
had spent four years in college, carrying off
honors in mathematics, was popular with his
classmates, who made him class poet, and in
his senior year he was elected president of the
college photographic society. He had gone to


160 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
that she had run away from him; and his
only son was a wild lad, who had been em-
ployed by Whittier, Wheatcroft & Co., out of
regard for the father, and who had disgraced
himself beyond forgiveness. Paul recalled
vaguely that the young fellow had gone West
somewhere, and had been shot in a mining-
camp after a drunken brawl in a gambling-
house.
As Paul entered the private office he found
the porter there, putting coal on the fire.
Stepping back to close the glass door be-
hind him, that they might be alone, he said:
"Mike, who shuts up the office at night?"
"Sure I do, Mr. Paul," was the prompt re-
ply.
"And you open it in the morning?" the
young man asked.
"I do that!" Mike responded.
"Do you see that these windows are always
fastened on the inside?" was the next query.
"Yes, Mr. Paul," the porter replied.
"Well," and the inquirer hesitated briefly
before putting this question, " have you found
any of these windows unfastened any morning
lately when you came here?"


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 163
had got in, and why he did not get out by the
way he entered, how he came to be able to
open the private safe, the combination of
which was known only to the two partners—.
these were questions for which Paul Whittier
had no answer.
What grieved him when he had come to the
conclusion was that the thief — for such the
house-breaker was in reality—was probably
one of the men in the employ of the firm. It
seemed to him almost certain that the man
who had broken in knew all the ins and outs
of the office. And how could this knowledge
have been obtained except by an employee?
Paul was well acquainted with the clerks in
the outer office. There were five of them, in-
cluding the old book-keeper, and although
none of them had been with the firm as long
as the Major, no one of them had been there
less than ten years. Paul did not know which
one to suspect. There was, in fact, no reason
to suspect any particular clerk. And yet that
one of the five men in the main office on the
other side of the glass partition within twenty
feet of him—that one of these was the guilty
man Paul did not doubt.


166 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
as he took his hat and overcoat, "I've just
broken the clock. I know a shop where they
make a specialty of repairing timepieces like
that. I'm going to tell them to send for it at
once. Give it to the man who will come this
afternoon with my card. Do you understand?"
"Cert," the boy answered. "If he 'ain't got
your card, he don't get the clock."
"That's what I mean," Paul responded, as
he left the office.
Before he reached the door he met Mr.
Wheatcroft.
"Paul," cried the junior partner, explosively,
"I've been thinking about that—about that—
you know what I mean! And I have decided
that we had better put a detective on this
thing at once!"
"Yes," said Paul, "that's a good idea. In
fact, I had just come to the same conclusion.
j )>
Then he checked himself. He had turned
round slightly to speak to Mr. Wheatcroft;
he saw that Major Van Zandt was standing
within ten feet of them, and he noticed that
the old book-keeper's face was strangely pale.


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 169
reason why we should depart from our old
custom of treating every man fairly. If there
is any one in our employ here who is selling
us, why, if we give him rope enough he will
hang himself, sooner or later."
"And before he suspends himself that way,"
cried Mr. Wheatcroft, " we may be forced to
suspend ourselves."
"Come, come, Wheatcroft," said the senior
partner, "I think we can afford to stand the
loss a little longer. What we can't afford to
do is to lose our self-respect by doing some-
thing irreparable. It may be that we shall
have to employ detectives, but I don't think
the time has come yet."
"Very well," the junior partner declared,
yielding an unwilling consent. "I don't in-
sist on it. I still think it would be best not
to waste any more time—but I don't insist.
What will happen is that we shall lose the
rolling of those steel rails for the Springfield
and Athens road—that's all."
Paul Whittier had taken no part in this dis-
cussion. He agreed with his father, and saw
he had no need to urge any further argument.
Presently he asked when they intended to


172 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
man's answer. "That bag has very little in
it. And, besides, I haven't got to carry it far."
The next morning Paul was the first of the
three to arrive. The clerks were in their places
already, but neither the senior nor the junior
partner had yet come. The porter happened
to be standing under the wagon archway as
Paul Whittier was about to enter the store.
The young man saw the porter, and a mis-
chievous smile hovered about the corners of
his mouth.
"Mike," he said, pausing on the door-step,
"do you think you ought to smoke while you
are cleaning out your office in the morning?"
"Sure, I haven't had me pipe in me mouth
this mornin' at all," the porter answered, taken
by surprise.
"But yesterday morning?" Paul pursued.
"Yesterday mornin'!" Mike echoed, not a
little puzzled.
"Yesterday morning at ten minutes before
eight you were in the private office smoking a
pipe."
"But how did you see me, Mr. Paul?" cried
Mike, in amaze. "Ye was late in comin' down
yesterday, wasn't ye?"


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 175
your heels against the safe, scratching off the
paint? Next time I'd try the yard, if I were
you. Sports of that sort are more fun in the
open air."
And with that parting shot Paul went on
his way to his own desk, leaving the office-boj'
greatly puzzled.
Later in the day Bob and Mike exchanged
confidences, and neither was ready with an
explanation.
"At school," Bob declared, "we used to
think teacher had eyes in the back of her head.
She was everlastingly catchin' me when I did
things behind her back. But Mr. Paul beats
that, for he see me doin' things when he wasn't
here."
"Mister Paul wasn't here, for sure, yester-
day mornin'," Mike asserted; "I'd take me
oath o' that. An' if he wasn't here, how could
he see me givin' ye a light from me pipe?
Answer me that! He says it's a little bird
told him; but that's not it, I'm thinkin'. Not
but that they have clocks with birds into 'em,
that come out and tell the time o' day,
'Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' An' if that big
clock he broke last week had a bird in it that


176 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
could tell time that way, I'd break the thing
quick—so I would."
"It ain't no bird," said Bob. "You can bet
your life on that. No birds can't tell him
nothin' no more'n you can catch 'em by putting
salt on their tails. I know what it is Mr. Paul
does—least, I know how he does it. It's second-
sight, that's what it is! I see a man onct at
the theayter, an' he—"
But perhaps it is not necessary to set down
here the office-boy's recollection of the trick
of an ingenious magician.
About half an hour after Paul had arrived
at the office Mr. Wheatcroft appeared. The
junior partner hesitated in the doorway for a
second, and then entered.
Paul was watching him, and the same mis-
chievous smile flashed over the face of the
young man.
"You need not be alarmed to-day, Mr.
Wheatcroft," he said. "There is no fascinat-
ing female waiting for you this morning."
"Confound the woman!" ejaculated Mr.
Wheatcroft, testily. "I couldn't get rid of her."
"But you subscribed for the book at last,"
asserted Paul, "and she went away happy."


178 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
"You see how uncomfortable it is to be
shadowed," said Paul, turning the topic as
his father entered the office.
That Saturday afternoon Mr. Whittier and
Mr. Wheatcroft agreed on the bid to be made
on the steel rails needed by the Springfield
and Athens road. While the elder Mr. Whittier
wrote the letter to the railroad with his own
hand, his son manoeuvred the junior partner
into the outer office, where all the clerks hap-
pened to be at work, including the old book-
keeper. Then Paul managed his conversation
with Mr. Wheatcroft so that any one of the
five employees who chose to listen to the ap-
parently careless talk should know that the
firm had just made a bid on another important
contract. Paul also spoke as though his father
and himself would probably go out of town
that Saturday night, to remain away till Mon-
day morning.
And just before the store was closed for the
night, Paul Whittier wound up the eight-day
clock that stood in the corner opposite the
private safe.


IV
ALTHOUGH the Whittiers, father and son,
spent Sunday out of town, Paul made an ex-
cuse to the friends whom they were visiting,
and returned to the city by a midnight train.
Thus he was enabled to present himself at
the office of the Ramapo Works very early on
Monday morning.
It was so early, indeed, that no one of the
employees had arrived when the son of the
senior partner, bag in hand, pushed open the
street door and entered the long store, at the
far end of which the porter was still tidying
up for the day's work.
"An' is that you, Mister Paul?" Mike
asked in surprise, as he came out of the pri-
vate office to see who the early visitor might
be. "An' what brought ye out o' your bed
before breakfast like this?"
"I always get out of bed before breakfast,"
Paul replied. "Don't you?"


184 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
It may be surmised that Mike would have
been still more in the dark as to Paul Whit-
tier's reasons for coming down-town so ear-
ly that Monday morning if he could have
seen the young man throw the copies of the
Gotham Gazette into the first ash - cart he
passed after he was out of range of the por-
ter's vision.
Paul was not the only member of Whittier,
Wheatcroft & Co. to arrive at the office early
that morning. Mr. Wheatcroft was usually
punctual, taking his seat at his desk just as
the clock struck half-past nine. On this Mon-
day morning he entered the store a little be-
fore nine.
As he walked back to the office he looked
over at the desks of the clerks as though he
was seeking some one.
At the door of the office he met Bob.
"Hasn't the Major come down yet?" he
asked, shortly.
"No, sir," the boy answered. "He don't
never get here till nine."
"H'm," grunted the junior partner. "When
he does come, tell him I want to see him at
once—at once, do you understand?"


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 187
and not once did he let his voice break out
explosively, as was his custom.
Major Van Zandt was still closeted with
Wheatcroft when Mr. Whittier arrived. The
senior partner stopped near the street door to
speak to a clerk, and he was joined almost
immediately by his son.
"Well, Paul," said the father, "have I got
down here before you after all, and in spite
of your running away last night?"
"No," the son responded, " I was the first
to arrive this morning^luckily,"
"LuckilyI" echoed his father. "I suppose
that means that you have been able to accom-
plish your purpose—whatever it was. You
didn't tell me, you know."
"I'm ready to tell you now, father," said
Paul, "since I have succeeded."
Walking down the store together, they
came to the private office.
As the old book-keeper saw them he started
up, and made as if to leave the office.
"Keep your seat, Major," cried Mr. Wheat-
croft, sternly, but not unkindly. "Keep your
seat, please."
Then he turned to Mr. Whittier. "I have


188 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
something to tell you both," he said, "and I
want the Major here while I tell you. Paul,
may I trouble you to see that the door is
closed so that we are out of hearing?"
"Certainly," Paul responded, as he closed
the door.
"Well, Wheatcroft," Mr. Whittier said,
"what is all this mystery of yours now?"
The junior partner swung around in his
chair and faced Mr. Whittier.
"My mystery?" he cried, "It's the mys-
tery that puzzled us all, and I've solved
it."
"What do you mean?" asked the senior
partner.
"What I mean is, that somebody has been
opening that safe there in the corner, and
reading our private letter-book, and finding
out what we were bidding on important con-
tracts. What I mean is, that this man has
taken this information, filched from us, and
sold it to our competitors, who were not too
scrupulous to buy stolen goods!"
"We all suspected this, as you know," the
elder Whittier said; "have you anything new
to add to it now?"


WHEN Paul Whittier said he had a photo-
graph of the mysterious enemy of the Rama-
po Steel and Iron Works in the very act of
opening the safe, Mr. Whittier and Mr. Wheat-
croft looked at each other in amazement. Major
Van Zandt stared at the young man with fear
and shame struggling together in his face.
Without waiting to enjoy his triumph, Paul
put his hand in his pocket and took out two
squares of bluish paper.
"There," he said, as he handed one to his
father, " there is a blue print of the man taken
in this office at ten minutes past three yester-
day afternoon, just as he was about to open
the safe in the corner. You see he is kneeling
with his hand on the lock, but apparently just
then something alarmed him and he cast a
hasty glance over his shoulder. At that sec-
ond the photograph was taken, and so we
have a full-face portrait of the man."


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 193
Mr. Whittier had looked at the photograph,
and he now passed it to the impatient hand of
the junior partner.
"You see, Mr. Wheatcroft," Paul continued,
"that although the face in the photograph
bears a certain family likeness to Major Van
Zandt's, all the same that is not a portrait of
the Major. The man who was here yesterday
was a young man, a man young enough to be
the Major's son!"
The old book-keeper looked at the speaker.
"Mr. Paul," he began, "you won't be hard
on the—" then he paused abruptly.
"I confess I don't understand this at all!"
declared Mr. "Wheatcroft, irascibly.
"I am afraid that I do understand it," Mr.
Whittier said, with a glance of compassion at
the Major.
"There," Paul continued, handing his father
a second azure square, "there is a photograph
taken here ten minutes after the first, at 3.20
yesterday afternoon. That shows the safe
open and the young man standing before it
with the private letter-book in his hand. As
his head is bent over the pages of the book,
the view of the face is not so good. But there
13


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 195
There was a moment's silence, broken by
Wheatcroft suddenly saying:
"The Major's son? Why, he's dead, isn't
he? He was shot in a brawl after a spree
somewhere out West two or three years ago
—at least, that's what I understood at the
time."
"It is what I wanted everybody to under-
stand at the time," said the book-keeper, break-
ing silence at last. "But it wasn't so. The
boy was shot, but he wasn't killed. I hoped
that it would be a warning to him, and he
would make a fresh start. Friends of mine got
him a place in Mexico, but luck was against
him—so he wrote me—and he lost that. Then
an old comrade of mine gave him another
chance out in Denver, and for a while he kept
straight and did his work well. Then he
broke down once more and he was discharged.
For six months I did not know what had be-
come of him. I've found out since that he
was a tramp for weeks, and that he walked
most of the way from Colorado to New York.
This fall he turned up in the city, ragged,
worn out, sick. I wanted to order him away,
but I couldn't. I took him back and got him


196 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
decent clothes and took him to look for a
place, for I knew that hard work was the only
thing that would keep him out of mischief,
he did not find a place, perhaps he did not
look for one. But all at once I discovered
that he had money. He would not tell me
how he got it. I knew he could not have
come by it honestly, and so I watched him.
I spied after him, and at last I found that he
was selling you to the Tuxedo Company."
"But how could he open the safe?" cried
Mr. Wheatcroft. "You didn't know the new
combination."
"I did not tell him the combination I did
know," said the old book-keeper, with pathetic
dignity. "And I didn't have to tell him. He
can open almost any safe without knowing the
combination. How he does it, I don't know;
it is his gift. He listens to the wheels as they
turn, and he sets first one and then the other;
and in ten minutes the safe is open."
"How could he get into the store?" Mr.
Whittier inquired.
"He knew I had a key," responded the old
book-keeper, "and he stole it from me. He
used to watch on Sunday afternoons till Mike


198 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
he is, but he is my son, after all—my only son!
And when Mr. Wheatcroft accused me, I con-
fessed at last, thinking you might be easier on
me than you would be on the boy."
"My poor friend," said Mr. Whittier, sym-
pathetically, holding out his hand, which the
Major clasped gratefully for a moment.
"Now that we know who was selling us to
the Tuxedo people, we can protect ourselves
hereafter," declared Mr. Wheatcroft. "And
in spite of your trying to humbug me into be-
lieving you guilty, Major, I'm willing to let
your son off easy."
"I think I can get him a place where he will
be out of temptation, because he will be kept
hard at work always," said Paul.
The old book-keeper looked up as though
about to thank the young man, but there
seemed to be a lump in his throat which pre-
vented him from speaking.
Suddenly Mr. Wheatcroft began, explosively,
"That's all very well! but what I still don't un-
derstand is how Paul got those photographs!"
Mr. Whittier looked at his son and smiled.
"That is a little mysterious, Paul," he said,
"and I confess I'd like to know how you did it."


THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 203
Before half-past three the man was gone, and
the camera winked every ten minutes until
six o'clock quite in vain. I came down early
this morning and got the roll of negatives.
One after another I developed them, dis-
appointed that I had almost counted fifty
of them without reward. But the forty-
third and the forty-fourth paid for all my
trouble."
Mr. "Whittier gave his son a look of pride.
"That was very ingeniously worked out, Paul;
very ingeniously indeed," he said. "If it had
not been for your clock here I might have
found it difficult to prove that the Major was
innocent—especially since he declared himself
guilty."
Mr. Wheatcroft rose to his feet, to close the
conversation.
"I'm glad we know the truth, anyhow," he
asserted, emphatically. And then, as though
to relieve the strain on the old book-keeper, he
added, with a loud laugh at his own joke,
"That clock had its hands before its face all
the time—but it kept its eyes open for all
that!"
"Don't forget that it had only one eye,"


204 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
said Whittier, joining in the laugh; "it had
an eye single to its duty."
"You know the French saying, father,"
added Paul, "' In the realm of the blind the
one-eyed man is king.'"
(1895.)


210 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
fortunately, almost in the very phrases of
Hawthorne and of Mrs. Stowe, while I was
forced to describe as best I could myself the
gyrations of the wife who lived in 'A Doll's
House' and of her remote predecessor as a
"new woman," the daughter of Herodias.
The same method was followed in the writing
of the third of these tales, although the au-
thors then drawn upon were most of them less
well known; and the only quotation of any
length was the one from Irving describing the
mysterious deeds of the headless horseman.
Now it chanced that the 'Dream-Gown of
the Japanese Ambassador,' instead of appear-
ing complete in one number of a magazine, as
the two earlier tales had done, was published
in various daily newspapers in three instal-
ments. In the first of these divisions the re-
turned traveller fell asleep and saw himself in
the crystal ball; in the second he went through
the rest of his borrowed adventures; and in
the third his friend awakened him and un-
ravelled the mystery. When the second part
appeared a clergyman who had read the
'Sketch-Book' (even though he had never
heard of the 'Forty-Seven Ronins,' or the


A CONFIDENTIAL POSTSCRIPT 211
'Shah-Nameh,' or the ' Custom of the Coun-
try ') took his pen and sat down and wrote
swiftly to a newspaper, declaring that this in-
stalment of my tale had been " cribbed bod-
ily, and almost verbatim et literatim, in one-
third of its entire length, from the familiar
'Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'" He asked sar-
castically if the copyright notice printed at
the head of my story was meant to apply also
to the passages plagiarized from Irving. He
declared also that "it is unfortunate for liter-
ary persons of the stamp of the author of
'Vignettes of Manhattan ' that there still ex-
ist readers who do not forget what they have
read that is worth remembering. Such read-
ers are not to be imposed on by the most skillful bunglers (sic) who endeavor to pass off as
their own the work of greater men."
The writer of this letter had given his
address, Christ Church Rectory, , N. J.
(I suppress the name of the village for the sake
of his parishioners as I suppress the name of
the man for the sake of his family). There-
fore I wrote to him at once, telling him that if
he had read the third and final instalment of
my story with the same attention he had given


A CONFIDENTIAL POSTSCRIPT 215
been tapped were Thursday, Friday, and Satur-
day. Father goes down to the store every Sun-
day morning for about half an hour to open the
mail, and it was then that he discovered the
Saturday night theft. Directly after Sunday
dinner, father went down to see an electrical
friend of his, who executed a plan which my
father had devised. The cash-drawer was sit-
uated in one corner of the office (quite a large
one), in which both the wholesale and retail
business is transacted. He placed a large de-
tective camera in the corner opposite the till,
and beside it, and a little behind, a quantity
of flash-light powder in a receptacle. This
powder was connected by electric wires with
the till in such a manner that when the drawer
was opened the circuit would be completed
and the powder ignited. Everything worked
to perfection. The office is always left dark
at night, so the shutter of the camera could be
left open without spoiling the film. The cam-
era was in place Sunday evening, but the thief
stayed away. It was set again on Monday
night, and that time we got him. A small
wire was attached to a weight near the cam-
era extending to the till. As the thief started


216 TALES OF FANTASY AND FACT
to open the drawer the weight made a slight
noise. He glanced in the direction of the
noise, started, pulled the weight a little far-
ther, and we had his picture. Detectives had
already been working on the case, and the
thief was identified and arrested on the
strength of the portrait. When he was in-
formed that we had his picture, he made a full
confession. He said that when the flashlight went off he nearly fainted from fright."
After this experience I am tempted to give
up all hope that I can ever invent anything
which is not a fact, even before I make it up.
I am now prepared, therefore, to discover that
I did really have an interview with Count
Cagliostro, and also that I was actually an
unwilling witness at the wedding of the rival
ghosts.
(1890.)
THE END