Told After Supper...............................................................................................................................................1

Jerome K. Jerome .....................................................................................................................................1

I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way to begin, and I have been brought up in a

proper, orthodox, respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox, respectable thing; and the

Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced

reader knows it was Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story,

Christmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas

Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybodyor rather, speaking of ghosts, one should say, I suppose,

every nobody who IS any nobodycomes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to

promenade about and display their windingsheets and graveclothes to each other, to criticise one another's

"Christmas Eve parade," as I expect they themselves term it, is a function, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and

looked forward to throughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as the murdered Barons, the

crimestained Countesses, and the Earls who came over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their relatives,

Hollow moans and fiendish grins are, one may be sure, energetically practised up. Bloodcurdling shrieks

and marrowfreezing gestures are probably rehearsed for weeks beforehand. Rusty chains and gory daggers

are overhauled, and put into good working order; and sheets and shrouds, laid carefully by from the

Oh, it is a stirring night in Ghostland, the night of December the twentyfourth!

Ghosts never come out on Christmas night itself, you may have noticed. Christmas Eve, we suspect, has been

too much for them; they are not used to excitement. For about a week after Christmas Eve, the gentlemen

ghosts, no doubt, feel as if they were all head, and go about making solemn resolutions to themselves that

they will stop in next Christmas Eve; while lady spectres are contradictory and snappish, and liable to burst

into tears and leave the room hurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever.

Ghosts with no position to maintainmere middleclass ghosts occasionally, I believe, do a little

haunting on offnights: on Allhallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for a mere local

eventto celebrate, for instance, the anniversary of the hanging of somebody's grandfather, or to prophesy a

He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble

to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside

down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other

terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses want to know sooner they could possibly help, and the

prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty

with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been

there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn, or balancing himself on somebody's

Then there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientious ghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered

number weighing heavy on their minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and also the fussy ghost,

who is indignant at having been buried in the dustbin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish

a single night's quiet until somebody has paid for a firstclass funeral for him.

But these are the exceptions. As I have said, the average orthodox ghost does his one turn a year, on

Why on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never could myself understand. It is invariably one of the

most dismal of nights to be out incold, muddy, and wet. And besides, at Christmas time, everybody has

quite enough to put up with in the way of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghosts of any

There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmassomething about the close, muggy atmosphere that

draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.

And not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve, but live people always sit and talk

about them on Christmas Eve. Whenever five or six Englishspeaking people meet round a fire on Christmas

Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other

tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and

There is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences; but this of course is not our fault but the

fault ghosts, who never will try any new performances, but always will keep steadily to old, safe business.

The consequence is that, when you have been at one Christmas Eve party, and heard six people relate their

adventures with spirits, you do not require to hear any more ghost stories. To listen to any further ghost

stories after that would be like sitting out two farcical comedies, or taking in two comic journals; the

There is always the young man who was, one year, spending the Christmas at a country house, and, on

Christmas Eve, they put him to sleep in the west wing. Then in the middle of the night, the room door quietly

opens and somebodygenerally a lady in her nightdresswalks slowly in, and comes and sits on the bed.

The young man thinks it must be one of the visitors, or some relative of the family, though he does not

remember having previously seen her, who, unable to go to sleep, and feeling lonesome, all by herself, has

come into his room for a chat. He has no idea it is a ghost: he is so unsuspicious. She does not speak,

The young man relates the circumstance at the breakfasttable next morning, and asks each of the ladies

present if it were she who was his visitor. But they all assure him that it was not, and the host, who has grown

deadly pale, begs him to say no more about the matter, which strikes the young man as a singularly strange

After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and explains to him that what he saw was the

ghost of a lady who had been murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else thereit does

not really matter which: you can be a ghost by murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself,

whichever you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but, on the other hand, you can

frighten people better if you are the murdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.

Then there is the sceptical guestit is always 'the guest' who gets let in for this sort of thing, bythebye. A

ghost never thinks much of his own family: it is 'the guest' he likes to haunt who after listening to the host's

ghost story, on Christmas Eve, laughs at it, and says that he does not believe there are such things as ghosts at

all; and that he will sleep in the haunted chamber that very night, if they will let him.

Everybody urges him not to be reckless, but he persists in his foolhardiness, and goes up to the Yellow

Chamber (or whatever colour the haunted room may be) with a light heart and a candle, and wishes them all

There is also the plucky guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a ghost, and watches it, as it comes into the

room and disappears through the wainscot, after which, as the ghost does not seem to be coming back, and

there is nothing, consequently, to be gained by stopping awake, he goes to sleep.

He does not mention having seen the ghost to anybody, for fear of frightening themsome people are so

nervous about ghosts,but determines to wait for the next night, and see if the apparition appears again.

It does appear again, and, this time, he gets out of bed, dresses himself and does his hair, and follows it; and

then discovers a secret passage leading from the bedroom down into the beercellar, a passage which, no

After him comes the young man who woke up with a strange sensation in the middle of the night, and found

his rich bachelor uncle standing by his bedside. The rich uncle smiled a weird sort of smile and vanished. The

young man immediately got up and looked at his watch. It had stopped at halfpast four, he having forgotten

He made inquiries the next day, and found that, strangely enough, his rich uncle, whose only nephew he was,

had married a widow with eleven children at exactly a quarter to twelve, only two days ago,

The young man does not attempt to explain the circumstance. All he does is to vouch for the truth of his

And, to mention another case, there is the gentleman who is returning home late at night, from a Freemasons'

dinner, and who, noticing a light issuing from a ruined abbey, creeps up, and looks through the keyhole. He

sees the ghost of a 'grey sister' kissing the ghost of a brown monk, and is so inexpressibly shocked and

frightened that he faints on the spot, and is discovered there the next morning, lying in a heap against the

door, still speechless, and with his faithful latchkey clasped tightly in his hand.

All these things happen on Christmas Eve, they are all told of on Christmas Eve. For ghost stories to be told

on any other evening than the evening of the twentyfourth of December would be impossible in English

society as at present regulated. Therefore, in introducing the sad but authentic ghost stories that follow

hereafter, I feel that it is unnecessary to inform the student of AngloSaxon literature that the date on which

It was Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve at my Uncle John's; Christmas Eve (There is too much 'Christmas Eve'

about this book. I can see that myself. It is beginning to get monotonous even to me. But I don't see how to

avoid it now.) at No. 47 Laburnham Grove, Tooting! Christmas Eve in the dimlylighted (there was a

gasstrike on) front parlour, where the flickering firelight threw strange shadows on the highly coloured

wallpaper, while without, in the wild street, the storm raged pitilessly, and the wind, like some unquiet

spirit, flew, moaning, across the square, and passed, wailing with a troubled cry, round by the milkshop.

We had had a very good suppera very good supper, indeed. Unpleasantness has occurred since, in our

family, in connection with this party. Rumours have been put about in our family, concerning the matter

generally, but more particularly concerning my own share in it, and remarks have been passed which have not

so much surprised me, because I know what our family are, but which have pained me very much. As for my

Aunt Maria, I do not know when I shall care to see her again. I should have thought Aunt Maria might have

But although injusticegross injustice, as I shall explain later onhas been done to myself, that shall not

deter me from doing justice to others; even to those who have made unfeeling insinuations. I will do justice to

Aunt Maria's hot veal pasties, and toasted lobsters, followed by her own special make of cheesecakes, warm

(there is no sense, to my thinking, in cold cheesecakes; you lose half the flavour), and washed down by Uncle

John's own particular old ale, and acknowledge that they were most tasty. I did justice to them then; Aunt

After supper, Uncle brewed some whiskypunch. I did justice to that also; Uncle John himself said so. He

Aunt went to bed soon after supper, leaving the local curate, old Dr. Scrubbles, Mr. Samuel Coombes, our

member of the County Council, Teddy Biffles, and myself to keep Uncle company. We agreed that it was too

early to give in for some time yet, so Uncle brewed another bowl of punch; and I think we all did justice to

thatat least I know I did. It is a passion with me, is the desire to do justice.

We sat up for a long while, and the Doctor brewed some ginpunch later on, for a change, though I could not

taste much difference myself. But it was all good, and we were very happyeverybody was so kind.

Uncle John told us a very funny story in the course of the evening. Oh, it WAS a funny story! I forget what it

was about now, but I know it amused me very much at the time; I do not think I ever laughed so much in all

my life. It is strange that I cannot recollect that story too, because he told it us four times. And it was entirely

our own fault that he did not tell it us a fifth. After that, the Doctor sang a very clever song, in the course of

which he imitated all the different animals in a farmyard. He did mix them a bit. He brayed for the bantam

I started relating a most interesting anecdote, but was somewhat surprised to observe, as I went on, that

nobody was paying the slightest attention to me whatever. I thought this rather rude of them at first, until it

dawned upon me that I was talking to myself all the time, instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did not

know that I was telling them a tale at all, and were probably puzzled to understand the meaning of my

animated expression and eloquent gestures. It was a most curious mistake for any one to make. I never knew

Later on, our curate did tricks with cards. He asked us if we had ever seen a game called the "Three Card

Trick." He said it was an artifice by means of which low, unscrupulous men, frequenters of racemeetings

and such like haunts, swindled foolish young fellows out of their money. He said it was a very simple trick to

do: it all depended on the quickness of the hand. It was the quickness of the hand deceived the eye.

He said he would show us the imposture so that we might be warned against it, and not be taken in by it; and

he fetched Uncle's pack of cards from the teacaddy, and, selecting three cards from the pack, two plain cards

and one picture card, sat down on the hearthrug, and explained to us what he was going to do.

He said: "Now I shall take these three cards in my handsoand let you all see them. And then I shall

quietly lay them down on the rug, with the backs uppermost, and ask you to pick out the picture card. And

Old Mr. Coombes, who is also one of our churchwardens, said it was the middle card.

"I don't 'fancy' anything at all about it," replied Mr. Coombes, "I tell you it's the middle card. I'll bet you half

"There you are, that's just what I was explaining to you," said our curate, turning to the rest of us; "that's the

way these foolish young fellows that I was speaking of are lured on to lose their money. They make sure they

know the card, they fancy they saw it. They don't grasp the idea that it is the quickness of the hand that has

He said he had known young men go off to a boat race, or a cricket match, with pounds in their pocket, and

come home, early in the afternoon, stone broke; having lost all their money at this demoralising game.

He said he should take Mr. Coombes's halfcrown, because it would teach Mr. Coombes a very useful lesson,

and probably be the means of saving Mr. Coombes's money in the future; and he should give the

"Don't you worry about that," retorted old Mr. Coombes. "Don't you take the halfcrown OUT of the blanket

He said that it did sometimes happen that way, thoughthat a man did sometimes lay on the right card, by

Our curate said it was, however, the most unfortunate thing a man could do for himself, if he only knew it,

because, when a man tried and won, it gave him a taste for the socalled sport, and it lured him on into

risking again and again; until he had to retire from the contest, a broken and ruined man.

Then he did the trick again. Mr. Coombes said it was the card next the coalscuttle this time, and wanted to

We laughed at him, and tried to persuade him against it. He would listen to no advice, however, but insisted

Our curate said very well then: he had warned him, and that was all that he could do. If he (Mr. Coombes)

Our curate said he should take the five shillings and that would put things right again with the blanket fund.

So Mr. Coombes put two halfcrowns on the card next the coal scuttle and turned it up.

And then we all played at it; and we all won. All except the curate, that is. He had a very bad quarter of an

We had some more punch after that; and Uncle made such a funny mistake in brewing it: he left out the

whisky. Oh, we did laugh at him, and we made him put in double quantity afterwards, as a forfeit.

And then, somehow or other, we must have got on to ghosts; because the next recollection I have is that we

Teddy Biffles told the first story, I will let him repeat it here in his own words.

(Do not ask me how it is that I recollect his own exact words whether I took them down in shorthand at the

time, or whether he had the story written out, and handed me the MS. afterwards for publication in this book,

I was little more than a lad when I first met with Johnson. I was home for the Christmas holidays, and, it

being Christmas Eve, I had been allowed to sit up very late. On opening the door of my little bedroom, to go

in, I found myself face to face with Johnson, who was coming out. It passed through me, and uttering a long

I was startled for the momentI was only a schoolboy at the time, and had never seen a ghost before,and

felt a little nervous about going to bed. But, on reflection, I remembered that it was only sinful people that

"Oh yes, that was old Johnson," he answered. "Don't you be frightened of that; he lives here." And then he

It seemed that Johnson, when it was alive, had loved, in early life, the daughter of a former lessee of our

house, a very beautiful girl, whose Christian name had been Emily. Father did not know her other name.

Johnson was too poor to marry the girl, so he kissed her goodbye, told her he would soon be back, and went

But Australia was not then what it became later on. Travellers through the bush were few and far between in

those early days; and, even when one was caught, the portable property found upon the body was often of

hardly sufficiently negotiable value to pay the simple funeral expenses rendered necessary. So that it took

The selfimposed task was accomplished at last, however, and then, having successfully eluded the police,

and got clear out of the Colony, he returned to England, full of hope and joy, to claim his bride.

He reached the house to find it silent and deserted. All that the neighbours could tell him was that, soon after

his own departure, the family had, on one foggy night, unostentatiously disappeared, and that nobody had

ever seen or heard anything of them since, although the landlord and most of the local tradesmen had made

Poor Johnson, frenzied with grief, sought his lost love all over the world. But he never found her, and, after

years of fruitless effort, he returned to end his lonely life in the very house where, in the happy bygone days,

He had lived there quite alone, wandering about the empty rooms, weeping and calling to his Emily to come

back to him; and when the poor old fellow died, his ghost still kept the business on.

It was there, the Pater said, when he took the house, and the agent had knocked ten pounds a year off the rent

After that, I was continually meeting Johnson about the place at all times of the night, and so, indeed, were

we all. We used to walk round it and stand aside to let it pass, at first; but, when we grew at home with it, and

there seemed no necessity for so much ceremony, we used to walk straight through it. You could not say it

It was a gentle, harmless, old ghost, too, and we all felt very sorry for it, and pitied it. The women folk,

But as time went on, it grew to be a bit a bore. You see it was full of sadness. There was nothing cheerful or

genial about it. You felt sorry for it, but it irritated you. It would sit on the stairs and cry for hours at a stretch;

and, whenever we woke up in the night, one was sure to hear it pottering about the passages and in and out of

the different rooms, moaning and sighing, so that we could not get to sleep again very easily. And when we

had a party on, it would come and sit outside the drawingroom door, and sob all the time. It did not do

"Oh, I'm getting sick of this old fool," said the Pater, one evening (the Dad can be very blunt, when he is put

out, as you know), after Johnson had been more of a nuisance than usual, and had spoiled a good game of

whist, by sitting up the chimney and groaning, till nobody knew what were trumps or what suit had been led,

even. "We shall have to get rid of him, somehow or other. I wish I knew how to do it."

"Well," said the Mater, "depend upon it, you'll never see the last of him until he's found Emily's grave. That's

what he is after. You find Emily's grave, and put him on to that, and he'll stop there. That's the only thing to

The idea seemed reasonable, but the difficulty in the way was that we none of us knew where Emily's grave

was any more than the ghost of Johnson himself did. The Governor suggested palming off some other Emily's

grave upon the poor thing, but, as luck would have it, there did not seem to have been an Emily of any sort

buried anywhere for miles round. I never came across a neighbourhood so utterly destitute of dead Emilies.

"Couldn't we fake up something for the old chap?" I queried. "He seems a simpleminded old sort. He might

"By Jove, so we will," exclaimed my father; and the very next morning we had the workmen in, and fixed up

a little mound at the bottom of the orchard with a tombstone over it, bearing the following inscription:

"That ought to fetch him," mused the Dad as he surveyed the work when finished. "I am sure I hope it does."

We lured him down there that very night; andwell, there, it was one of the most pathetic things I have ever

seen, the way Johnson sprang upon that tombstone and wept. Dad and old Squibbins, the gardener, cried like

Johnson has never troubled us any more in the house since then. It spends every night now, sobbing on the

"There still?" Oh yes. I'll take you fellows down and show you it, next time you come to our place: 10 p.m. to

It made me cry very much, that story, young Biffles told it with so much feeling. We were all a little

thoughtful after it, and I noticed even the old Doctor covertly wipe away a tear. Uncle John brewed another

The Doctor, indeed, after a while became almost cheerful, and told us about the ghost of one of his patients.

I cannot give you his story. I wish I could. They all said afterwards that it was the best of the lotthe most

ghastly and terriblebut I could not make any sense of it myself. It seemed so incomplete.

He began all right and then something seemed to happen, and then he was finishing it. I cannot make out

It ended up, I know, however, with somebody finding something; and that put Mr. Coombes in mind of a

very curious affair that took place at an old Mill, once kept by his brotherinlaw.

Mr. Coombes said he would tell us his story, and before anybody could stop him, he had begun.

Well, you all know my brotherinlaw, Mr. Parkins (began Mr. Coombes, taking the long clay pipe from his

mouth, and putting it behind his ear: we did not know his brotherinlaw, but we said we did, so as to save

time), and you know of course that he once took a lease of an old Mill in Surrey, and went to live there.

Now you must know that, years ago, this very mill had been occupied by a wicked old miser, who died there,

leavingso it was rumoured all his money hidden somewhere about the place. Naturally enough, every

one who had since come to live at the mill had tried to find the treasure; but none had ever succeeded, and the

local wiseacres said that nobody ever would, unless the ghost of the miserly miller should, one day, take a

My brotherinlaw did not attach much importance to the story, regarding it as an old woman's tale, and,

"Unless business was very different then from what it is now," said my brotherinlaw, "I don't see how a

miller could very well have saved anything, however much of a miser he might have been: at all events, not

One night he went to bed. There was nothing very extraordinary about that, I admit. He often did go to bed of

a night. What WAS remarkable, however, was that exactly as the clock of the village church chimed the last

stroke of twelve, my brotherinlaw woke up with a start, and felt himself quite unable to go to sleep again.

It moved into the moonlight, and then my brotherinlaw saw that it was the figure of a wizened little old

In an instant the story of the hidden treasure and the old miser flashed across his mind.

"He's come to show me where it's hid," thought my brotherinlaw; and he resolved that he would not spend

all this money on himself, but would devote a small percentage of it towards doing good to others.

The apparition moved towards the door: my brotherinlaw put on his trousers and followed it. The ghost

went downstairs into the kitchen, glided over and stood in front of the hearth, sighed and disappeared.

Next morning, Joe had a couple of bricklayers in, and made them haul out the stove and pull down the

They knocked down half the wall, and never found so much as a four penny bit. My brotherinlaw did not

The next night the old man appeared again, and again led the way into the kitchen. This time, however,

instead of going to the fireplace, it stood more in the middle of the room, and sighed there.

"Oh, I see what he means now," said my brotherinlaw to himself; "it's under the floor. Why did the old

idiot go and stand up against the stove, so as to make me think it was up the chimney?"

They spent the next day in taking up the kitchen floor; but the only thing they found was a threepronged

On the third night, the ghost reappeared, quite unabashed, and for a third time made for the kitchen. Arrived

"Umph! he don't seem to have learned much sense where he's been to," muttered Joe, as he trotted back to

Still, there seemed no doubt now where the treasure lay, and the first thing after breakfast they started pulling

down the ceiling. They got every inch of the ceiling down, and they took up the boards of the room above.

They discovered about as much treasure as you would expect to find in an empty quartpot.

On the fourth night, when the ghost appeared, as usual, my brother inlaw was so wild that he threw his

On the fifth night, when Joe awoke, as he always did now at twelve, the ghost was standing in a dejected

attitude, looking very miserable. There was an appealing look in its large sad eyes that quite touched my

"After all," he thought, "perhaps the silly chap's doing his best. Maybe he has forgotten where he really did

The ghost appeared grateful and delighted at seeing Joe prepare to follow him, and led the way into the attic,

"Well, he's hit it this time, I do hope," said my brotherinlaw; and next day they set to work to take the roof

It took them three days to get the roof thoroughly off, and all they found was a bird's nest; after securing

You might have thought that would have cured the poor fellow of looking for treasure. But it didn't.

He said there must be something in it all, or the ghost would never keep on coming as it did; and that, having

gone so far, he would go on to the end, and solve the mystery, cost what it might.

Night after night, he would get out of his bed and follow that spectral old fraud about the house. Each night,

the old man would indicate a different place; and, on each following day, my brother inlaw would proceed

to break up the mill at the point indicated, and look for the treasure. At the end of three weeks, there was not

a room in the mill fit to live in. Every wall had been pulled down, every floor had been taken up, every

ceiling had had a hole knocked in it. And then, as suddenly as they had begun, the ghost's visits ceased; and

"What induced the old image to play such a silly trick upon a family man and a ratepayer?" Ah! that's just

Some said that the ghost of the wicked old man had done it to punish my brotherinlaw for not believing in

him at first; while others held that the apparition was probably that of some deceased local plumber and

glazier, who would naturally take an interest in seeing a house knocked about and spoilt. But nobody knew

I could not make head or tail of the curate's story, so I cannot retail it to you. We none of us could make head

or tail of that story. It was a good story enough, so far as material went. There seemed to be an enormous

amount of plot, and enough incident to have made a dozen novels. I never before heard a story containing so

I should say that every human being our curate had ever known or met, or heard of, was brought into that

story. There were simply hundreds of them. Every five seconds he would introduce into the tale a completely

"Well, then, my uncle went into the garden, and got his gun, but, of course, it wasn't there, and Scroggins said

"Why, that's what I'm telling you. It was she that found the hat. She'd come up with her cousin to

Londonher cousin was my sister inlaw, and the other niece had married a man named Evans, and Evans,

after it was all over, had taken the box round to Mr. Jacobs', because Jacobs' father had seen the man, when

"Now look here, never you mind Evans and the box; what's become of your uncle and the gun?"

"Why, the gun that your uncle used to keep in the garden, and that wasn't there. What did he do with it? Did

he kill any of these people with itthese Jacobses and Evanses and Scrogginses and Josephses? Because, if

"Nooh nohow could he?he had been built up alive in the wall, you know, and when Edward IV spoke

to the abbot about it, my sister said that in her then state of health she could not and would not, as it was

endangering the child's life. So they christened it Horatio, after her own son, who had been killed at Waterloo

"Look here, do you know what you are talking about?" we asked him at this point.

He said "No," but he knew it was every word of it true, because his aunt had seen it herself. Whereupon we

"I don't want to make you fellows nervous," began my uncle in a peculiarly impressive, not to say

bloodcurdling, tone of voice, "and if you would rather that I did not mention it, I won't; but, as a matter of

"What's the use of your saying I don't say it when I have just said it?" retorted my uncle somewhat pettishly.

"You do talk so foolishly. I tell you the house is haunted. Regularly on Christmas Eve the Blue Chamber

[they called the room next to the nursery the 'blue chamber,' at my uncle's, most of the toilet service being of

that shade] is haunted by the ghost of a sinful mana man who once killed a Christmas wait with a lump of

"How did he do it?" asked Mr. Coombes, with eager anxiousness. "Was it difficult?"

"I do not know how he did it," replied my uncle; "he did not explain the process. The wait had taken up a

position just inside the front gate, and was singing a ballad. It is presumed that, when he opened his mouth

for B flat, the lump of coal was thrown by the sinful man from one of the windows, and that it went down the

"You want to be a good shot, but it is certainly worth trying," murmured Mr. Coombes thoughtfully.

"But that was not his only crime, alas!" added my uncle. "Prior to that he had killed a solo cornetplayer."

"Of course it's a fact," answered my uncle testily; "at all events, as much a fact as you can expect to get in a

"How very captious you are this evening. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. The poor fellow,

the cornetplayer, had been in the neighbourhood barely a month. Old Mr. Bishop, who kept the 'Jolly Sand

Boys' at the time, and from whom I had the story, said he had never known a more hardworking and

energetic solo cornetplayer. He, the cornetplayer, only knew two tunes, but Mr. Bishop said that the man

could not have played with more vigour, or for more hours in a day, if he had known forty. The two tunes he

did play were "Annie Laurie" and "Home, Sweet Home"; and as regarded his performance of the former

melody, Mr. Bishop said that a mere child could have told what it was meant for.

"This musicianthis poor, friendless artist used to come regularly and play in this street just opposite for

two hours every evening. One evening he was seen, evidently in response to an invitation, going into this

"Did the townsfolk try offering any reward for his recovery?" asked Mr. Coombes.

"Another summer," continued my uncle, "a German band visited here, intendingso they announced on

"On the second day from their arrival, the whole company, as fine and healthy a body of men as one could

wish to see, were invited to dinner by this sinful man, and, after spending the whole of the next twentyfour

hours in bed, left the town a broken and dyspeptic crew; the parish doctor, who had attended them, giving it

as his opinion that it was doubtful if they would, any of them, be fit to play an air again."

"Unfortunately I do not," replied my uncle; "but the chief ingredient was said to have been railway

"I forget the man's other crimes," my uncle went on; "I used to know them all at one time, but my memory is

not what it was. I do not, however, believe I am doing his memory an injustice in believing that he was not

entirely unconnected with the death, and subsequent burial, of a gentleman who used to play the harp with his

toes; and that neither was he altogether unresponsible for the lonely grave of an unknown stranger who had

once visited the neighbourhood, an Italian peasant lad, a performer upon the barrel organ.

"Every Christmas Eve," said my uncle, cleaving with low impressive tones the strange awed silence that, like

a shadow, seemed to have slowly stolen into and settled down upon the room, "the ghost of this sinful man

haunts the Blue Chamber, in this very house. There, from midnight until cockcrow, amid wild muffled

shrieks and groans and mocking laughter and the ghostly sound of horrid blows, it does fierce phantom fight

with the spirits of the solo cornet player and the murdered wait, assisted at intervals, by the shades of the

German band; while the ghost of the strangled harpist plays mad ghostly melodies with ghostly toes on the

Uncle said the Blue Chamber was comparatively useless as a sleepingapartment on Christmas Eve.

"Hark!" said uncle, raising a warning hand towards the ceiling, while we held our breath, and listened; "Hark!

Before I tell you my own story, howeverthe story of what happened in the Blue ChamberI would wish

I feel a good deal of hesitation about telling you this story of my own. You see it is not a story like the other

stories that I have been telling you, or rather that Teddy Biffles, Mr. Coombes, and my uncle have been

telling you: it is a true story. It is not a story told by a person sitting round a fire on Christmas Eve, drinking

Indeed, it is not a 'story' at all, in the commonly accepted meaning of the word: it is a report. It is, I feel,

almost out of place in a book of this kind. It is more suitable to a biography, or an English history.

There is another thing that makes it difficult for me to tell you this story, and that is, that it is all about

myself. In telling you this story, I shall have to keep on talking about myself; and talking about ourselves is

what we modernday authors have a strong objection to doing. If we literary men of the new school have one

praiseworthy yearning more ever present to our minds than another it is the yearning never to appear in the

I myself, so I am told, carry this coynessthis shrinking reticence concerning anything connected with my

own personality, almost too far; and people grumble at me because of it. People come to me and say

"Well, now, why don't you talk about yourself a bit? That's what we want to read about. Tell us something

But I have always replied, "No." It is not that I do not think the subject an interesting one. I cannot myself

conceive of any topic more likely to prove fascinating to the world as a whole, or at all events to the cultured

portion of it. But I will not do it, on principle. It is inartistic, and it sets a bad example to the younger men.

Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, I should not tell you this story at all. I should say to myself, "No! It

is a good story, it is a moral story, it is a strange, weird, enthralling sort of a story; and the public, I know,

would like to hear it; and I should like to tell it to them; but it is all about myselfabout what I said, and

what I saw, and what I did, and I cannot do it. My retiring, antiegotistical nature will not permit me to talk

But the circumstances surrounding this story are not ordinary, and there are reasons prompting me, in spite of

As I stated at the beginning, there has been unpleasantness in our family over this party of ours, and, as

regards myself in particular, and my share in the events I am now about to set forth, gross injustice has been

As a means of replacing my character in its proper lightof dispelling the clouds of calumny and

misconception with which it has been darkened, I feel that my best course is to give a simple, dignified

narration of the plain facts, and allow the unprejudiced to judge for themselves. My chief object, I candidly

confess, is to clear myself from unjust aspersion. Spurred by this motiveand I think it is an honourable and

a right motiveI find I am enabled to overcome my usual repugnance to talking about myself, and can thus

As soon as my uncle had finished his story, I, as I have already told you, rose up and said that _I_ would

"Never!" cried my uncle, springing up. "You shall not put yourself in this deadly peril. Besides, the bed is not

"Never mind the bed," I replied. "I have lived in furnished apartments for gentlemen, and have been

accustomed to sleep on beds that have never been made from one year's end to the other. Do not thwart me in

my resolve. I am young, and have had a clear conscience now for over a month. The spirits will not harm me.

I may even do them some little good, and induce them to be quiet and go away. Besides, I should like to see

Saying which, I sat down again. (How Mr. Coombes came to be in my chair, instead of at the other side of

the room, where he had been all the evening; and why he never offered to apologise when I sat right down on

top of him; and why young Biffles should have tried to palm himself off upon me as my Uncle John, and

induced me, under that erroneous impression, to shake him by the hand for nearly three minutes, and tell him

that I had always regarded him as father,are matters that, to this day, I have never been able to fully

They tried to dissuade me from what they termed my foolhardy enterprise, but I remained firm, and claimed

my privilege. I was 'the guest.' 'The guest' always sleeps in the haunted chamber on Christmas Eve; it is his

They said that if I put it on that footing, they had, of course, no answer; and they lighted a candle for me, and

Whether elevated by the feeling that I was doing a noble action, or animated by a mere general consciousness

of rectitude, is not for me to say, but I went upstairs that night with remarkable buoyancy. It was as much as I

could do to stop at the landing when I came to it; I felt I wanted to go on up to the roof. But, with the help of

the banisters, I restrained my ambition, wished them all good night, and went in and shut the door.

Things began to go wrong with me from the very first. The candle tumbled out of the candlestick before my

hand was off the lock. It kept on tumbling out of the candlestick, and every time I picked put it up and put it

in, it tumbled out again: I never saw such a slippery candle. I gave up attempting to use the candlestick at last,

and carried the candle about in my hand; and, even then, it would not keep upright. So I got wild and threw it

I did not go to sleep,I did not feel sleepy at all,I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling, and thinking

of things. I wish I could remember some of the ideas that came to me as I lay there, because they were so

I had been lying like this for half an hour or so, and had forgotten all about the ghost, when, on casually

casting my eyes round the room, I noticed for the first time a singularly contentedlooking phantom, sitting

I fancied for the moment, as most people would under similar circumstances, that I must be dreaming. I sat

No! It was a ghost, clear enough. I could see the back of the chair through his body. He looked over towards

The most surprising part of the whole thing to me was that I did not feel in the least alarmed. If anything, I

We remained silent for a few seconds, and then, wishing to put it pleasantly, I said, "I believe I have the

honour of addressing the ghost of the gentleman who had the accident with the wait?"

He smiled, and said it was very good of me to remember it. One wait was not much to boast of, but still,

I was somewhat staggered at his answer. I had expected a groan of remorse. The ghost appeared, on the

contrary, to be rather conceited over the business. I thought that, as he had taken my reference to the wait so

quietly, perhaps he would not be offended if I questioned him about the organgrinder. I felt curious about

"Is it true," I asked, "that you had a hand in the death of that Italian peasant lad who came to the town once

He quite fired up. "Had a hand in it!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Who has dared to pretend that he assisted

me? I murdered the youth myself. Nobody helped me. Alone I did it. Show me the man who says I didn't."

I calmed him. I assured him that I had never, in my own mind, doubted that he was the real and only assassin,

and I went on and asked him what he had done with the body of the cornetplayer he had killed.

He smiled, and gave a little cough. He said he did not like to appear to be boasting, but that, counting

"Dear me!" I replied, "you must have had quite a busy time of it, one way and another."

He said that perhaps he ought not to be the one to say so, but that really, speaking of ordinary

middlesociety, he thought there were few ghosts who could look back upon a life of more sustained

He puffed away in silence for a few seconds, while I sat watching him. I had never seen a ghost smoking a

I asked him what tobacco he used, and he replied, "The ghost of cut cavendish, as a rule."

He explained that the ghost of all the tobacco that a man smoked in life belonged to him when he became

dead. He said he himself had smoked a good deal of cut cavendish when he was alive, so that he was well

I observed that it was a useful thing to know that, and I made up my mind to smoke as much tobacco as ever I

I thought I might as well start at once, so I said I would join him in a pipe, and he said, "Do, old man"; and I

reached over and got out the necessary paraphernalia from my coat pocket and lit up.

We grew quite chummy after that, and he told me all his crimes. He said he had lived next door once to a

young lady who was learning to play the guitar, while a gentleman who practised on the bass viol lived

opposite. And he, with fiendish cunning, had introduced these two unsuspecting young people to one another,

and had persuaded them to elope with each other against their parents' wishes, and take their musical

instruments with them; and they had done so, and, before the honeymoon was over, SHE had broken his head

with the bassviol, and HE had tried to cram the guitar down her throat, and had injured her for life.

My friend said he used to lure muffinmen into the passage and then stuff them with their own wares till they

Young men and women who recited long and dreary poems at evening parties, and callow youths who

walked about the streets late at night, playing concertinas, he used to get together and poison in batches of

ten, so as to save expense; and park orators and temperance lecturers he used to shut up six in a small room

with a glass of water and a collectionbox apiece, and let them talk each other to death.

I asked him when he expected the other ghoststhe ghosts of the wait and the cornetplayer, and the

German band that Uncle John had mentioned. He smiled, and said they would never come again, any of

I said, "Why; isn't it true, then, that they meet you here every Christmas Eve for a row?"

He replied that it WAS true. Every Christmas Eve, for twentyfive years, had he and they fought in that

room; but they would never trouble him nor anybody else again. One by one, had he laid them out, spoilt, and

utterly useless for all haunting purposes. He had finished off the last Germanband ghost that very evening,

just before I came upstairs, and had thrown what was left of it out through the slit between the

"I suppose you will still come yourself, as usual?" I said. "They would be sorry to miss you, I know."

"Oh, I don't know," he replied; "there's nothing much to come for now. Unless," he added kindly, "YOU are

"I have taken a liking to you," he continued; "you don't fly off, screeching, when you see a party, and your

hair doesn't stand on end. You've no idea," he said, "how sick I am of seeing people's hair standing on end."

Just then a slight noise reached us from the yard below, and he started and turned deathly black.

"You are ill," I cried, springing towards him; "tell me the best thing to do for you. Shall I drink some brandy,

He remained silent, listening intently for a moment, and then he gave a sigh of relief, and the shade came

"Oh, it's too early for that," I said. "Why, it's only the middle of the night."

"Oh, that doesn't make any difference to those cursed chickens," he replied bitterly. "They would just as soon

crow in the middle of the night as at any other timesooner, if they thought it would spoil a chap's evening

He said a friend of his, the ghost of a man who had killed a water rate collector, used to haunt a house in

Long Acre, where they kept fowls in the cellar, and every time a policeman went by and flashed his

bull'seye down the grating, the old cock there would fancy it was the sun, and start crowing like mad; when,

of course, the poor ghost had to dissolve, and it would, in consequence, get back home sometimes as early as

one o'clock in the morning, swearing fearfully because it had only been out for an hour.

"Oh, it's an absurd arrangement altogether," he continued, quite angrily. "I can't imagine what our old man

could have been thinking of when he made it. As I have said to him, over and over again, 'Have a fixed time,

and let everybody stick to itsay four o'clock in summer, and six in winter. Then one would know what one

He was on the point of replying, when again he started and listened. This time I distinctly heard Mr. Bowles's

"There you are," he said, rising and reaching for his hat; "that's the sort of thing we have to put up with. What

"I thought as much," he muttered. "I'll wring that blessed bird's neck if I get hold of it." And he prepared to

"If you can wait half a minute," I said, getting out of bed, "I'll go a bit of the way with you."

"It's very good of you," he rejoined, pausing, "but it seems unkind to drag you out."

"Not at all," I replied; "I shall like a walk." And I partially dressed myself, and took my umbrella; and he put

"Goodnight, sir," answered the man a little gruffly, I thought. "May I ask what you're adoing of?"

"Oh, it's all right," I responded, with a wave of my umbrella; "I'm just seeing my friend part of the way

"Oh, ah, of course," I laughed; "I forgot. He's invisible to you. He is the ghost of the gentleman that killed the

"Ah, I don't think I would, if I was you, sir," said Jones severely. "If you take my advice, you'll say goodbye

to your friend here, and go back indoors. Perhaps you are not aware that you are walking about with nothing

on but a nightshirt and a pair of boots and an operahat. Where's your trousers?"

I did not like the man's manner at all. I said, "Jones! I don't wish to have to report you, but it seems to me

you've been drinking. My trousers are where a man's trousers ought to beon his legs. I distinctly remember

"I think so, too," he answered, "but you evidently don't. Now you come along indoors with me, and don't let's

Uncle John came to the door at this point, having been awaked, I suppose, by the altercation; and, at the same

I explained the constable's mistake to them, treating the matter as lightly as I could, so as not to get the man

It struck me as so unkind, his having gone off in that way, that I burst into tears; and Uncle John came out,

On reaching my room, I discovered that Jones was right. I had not put on my trousers, after all. They were

still hanging over the bedrail. I suppose, in my anxiety not to keep the ghost waiting, I must have forgotten

Such are the plain facts of the case, out of which it must, doubtless, to the healthy, charitable mind appear

PersonsI say 'persons'have professed themselves unable to understand the simple circumstances herein

narrated, except in the light of explanations at once misleading and insulting. Slurs have been cast and

But I bear no illfeeling. I merely, as I have said, set forth this statement for the purpose of clearing my