What are you doing here?
Ive just left the club I answered. Its all right. I was Hawley Hickss guest. Whose ghost are you?
What the deuce are you talking about? he asked, rather gruffly, much to my surprise and discomfort.
I tried to give you a civil answer to your question, I returned, indignantly.
I guess youre crazy or a thief, he rejoined.
See here, friend, I put in, rather impressively, just remember one thing. You are talking to a gentleman, and I dont take remarks of that sort from anybody, spook or otherwise. I dont care if you are the ghost of the Emperor Nero, if you give me any more of your impudence Ill dissipate you to the four quarters of the universe see?
Then he grabbed me and shouted for the police, and I was painfully surprised to find that instead of coping with a mysterious being from another world, I had two hundred and ten pounds of flesh and blood to handle. The populace began to gather. The million and a half of small boys of whom I have already spoken mostly street gamins, owing to the lateness of the hour sprang up from all about us. Hansom-cab drivers, attracted by the noise of our altercation, drew up to the sidewalk to watch developments, and then, after the usual fifteen or twenty minutes, the blue-coat emissary of justice appeared.
Phats dthis? he asked.
I have detected this man leaving my house in a suspicious manner, said my adversary. I have reason to suspect him of thieving.
Your house! I ejaculated, with fine scorn. Ive got you there; this is the house of the New York Branch of the Ghost Club. If you want it proved, I added, turning to the policeman, ring the bell, and ask.
Oi tink dthats a fair prophosition, observed the policeman. Is the motion siconded?
Oh, come now! cried my captor. Stop this nonsense, or Ill report you to the department. This is my house, and has been for twenty years. I want this man searched.
Oi hov no warrant permithin me to invistigate the contints ov dthe gintlemons clothes, returned the intelligent member of the force. But av yez ll take yer solemn alibi dthat yez hov rayson t belave the gintlemon has worked ony habeas corpush business on yure propherty, oill jug dthe blag-yard.
Your house! I ejaculated, with fine scorn. Ive got you there; this is the house of the New York Branch of the Ghost Club. If you want it proved, I added, turning to the policeman, ring the bell, and ask.
Oi tink dthats a fair prophosition, observed the policeman. Is the motion siconded?
Oh, come now! cried my captor. Stop this nonsense, or Ill report you to the department. This is my house, and has been for twenty years. I want this man searched.
Oi hov no warrant permithin me to invistigate the contints ov dthe gintlemons clothes, returned the intelligent member of the force. But av yez ll take yer solemn alibi dthat yez hov rayson t belave the gintlemon has worked ony habeas corpush business on yure propherty, oill jug dthe blag-yard.
Ill be responsible, said the alleged owner of the house. Take him to the station.
I refuse to move, I said.
Oill not carry yez, said the policeman, and oid advoise ye to furnish yure own locomotion. Av ye dont, oill use me club. Dthots th ounly waa yez ll git dthe ambulanch.
Oh, well, if you insist, I replied, of course Ill go. I have nothing to fear.
You see, added 5010 to me, in parenthesis, the thought suddenly flashed across my mind that if all was as my captor said, if the house was really his and not the Ghost Clubs, and if the whole thing was only my fancy, the spoons themselves would turn out to be entirely fanciful; so I was all right or at least I thought I was. So we trotted along to the police station. On the way I told the policeman the whole story, which impressed him so that he crossed himself a half-dozen times, and uttered numerous ejaculatory prayers Maa dthe shaints presharve us, and Hivin hov mershy, and others of a like import.
Waz dthe ghosht ov Dan OConnell dthere? he asked.
Yes, I replied. I shook hands with it.
Let me shaak dthot hand, he said, his voice trembling with emotion, and then he whispered in my ear: Oi belave yez to be innoshunt; but av yez aint, for the love of Dan, oill let yez eshcape.
Thanks, old fellow, I replied. But I am innocent of wrong-doing, as I can prove.
Alas! sighed the convict, it was not to be so. When I arrived at the station-house, I was dumfounded to learn that the spoons were all too real. I told my story to the sergeant, and pointed to the monogram, G.C., on the spoons as evidence that my story was correct; but even that told against me, for the alleged owners initials were G.C. his name I withhold and the monogram only served to substantiate his claim to the spoons. Worst of all, he claimed that he had been robbed on several occasions before this, and by midnight I found myself locked up in a dirty cell to await trial.
I got a lawyer, and, as I said before, even he declined to believe my story, and suggested the insanity dodge. Of course I wouldnt agree to that. I tried to get him to subpoena Ferdinand and Isabella and Euripides and Hawley Hicks in my behalf, and all hed do was to sit there and shake his head at me. Then I suggested going up to the Metropolitan Opera-house some fearful night as the clock struck twelve, and try to serve papers on Wagners spook all of which he treated as unworthy of a moments consideration. Then I was tried, convicted, and sentenced to live in this beastly hole; but I have one strong hope to buoy me up, and if that is realized, Ill be free to-morrow morning.