WHAT BECAME OF THE GHOST.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9323, 25 January 1896, Page 3

WHAT BECAME OF THE GHOST.

W. L. AUlen, in " Yule Tide." Simmons was an excessive and unnecessary American. That was the "hanimous verdict which his fellow-artists PMsed upon him when he made his first •ppearance in Paris "Probably you don't believe in ghosts," ■aid Simmons. " But if you'd known as toa ny ghosts as I've known, you'd under"tend that ghosts are as common as cats, and pretty near as intelligent." ' Two years ago I was painting in Venice, *hich I consider the meanest town on this *de of the Atlantic, and I can't say worse *"*n that. It's ruinous and dirty, and inconvenient, and you can't get any taring tit to **t in the whole place. It has the biggest ghost population of any city in the world, •tough the general public doesn't know it. ° v B ee, the cemetery is mighty uncomfort--O» e Mere being at least a foot of water in trrave, and the consequence is that 0 "* t * ie people that are buried in prefer to become ghosts and Zander about the town, where they can "Wnage to keep dry. I was wanting to paint * Picture of the Northern Lagoon, and one day *flen I was looking for a good place to set i B P my easel, I saw a house standing just on jto edge of the water, that looked as if it *** been shut up since the time of Julius ' v* 881 "- I saw that if I had a room in that jWUje l could paint my picture without any and so I made enquiries about * Well, I found somebody who professed

to be the agent of the OAvner of the house, and I rented a room for three francs a month. "I soon found that the house was a I r<\~.ilar t;host barrack. They didn't show ; themselves, but they made a lot of noise. ; J sure wasn't any lock to my room, and the | firs: night I slept in it the ghosts opened , the door, and let in a current of air that : g.tve mc a cold ; so I put a cheap lock on j tiie door, which kept out the ghosts, though j any ordinary burglar could have opened it j with a nail. Sometimes the ghosts would | c 'Ana into my room while I Avas at work ; i but bi-yor.d making the furniture creak, and | occasionally knocking something off the table—for they are a careless lot—they didn't disturb mc in the daytime. But at night there seemed to be Avhole gangs of them going up and down stairs, and holding political meetings and women's rights conventions in the next room. Every now and then I used to get up and go out on the landing, and ask them to remember that they were keeping an inoffensiA'e foreigner awake. " One day I Avent to the bank to draw some money that was coming to mc from America, and to cash a draft for a picttire that I had sold to an English tourist. Altogether it made a good bit of money, and the banket- paid it to mc in gold, because I never trust any of this foreign paper money. It tilled a small bag, and as it was too heavy for mc to carry in my pocket, I carried it in my hand, though the banker warned mc that I was putting temptation in the way of the poor, and trifling with the feelings of the criminal classes. I had my dinner at a restaurant, and afterwards spent most of the evening at a cafe in the Piazza, where I used to go to read the papers. About nine o'clock I heard thunder, and, not ha\ing any umbrella, started in a hurry for my room. " The storm came up more slowly than I had expected, but soon after I had gone to bed it arrived, and gave a first-class exhibition of what Venice can do in the line of thunderstorms when she gives her whole mind to it. It rained as if the AA'ater had boon emptied out of a thousand washtubs ; tho lightning was so sharp that it half blinded mc, and the thunder shook the whole house from top to bottom. As for the wind, it howled Averse than a London milkman ; and as there Avas too much noise for sleeping, I just lay in bed and amused myself watching the lightning. All at once I saw something that I don't mind admitting gave mc a start. I told you that King j Arthur, as I used to call my suit of armour, always stood in a corner of the ! room. Well, I happened to be looking in that direction, -when a flash of lightning shoAved mc that King Arthur had moved about two feet away from the corner, and ■ Avas standing perfectly still in his new position. I didn't mind ordinary ghosts; but when it came to a suit of armour Avaltzing around a room by itself, I didn't like the look of it. I lay there in the dark, trying to persuade myself that I had been mistaken in thinking that I had seen the armour standing in the corner Avhen I went to bed, and saying to myself that the woman who j took care of the room must have moved it. • I kneAV all the time that this Avasn't true ; | but Avhen a man is fool enough to be ! frightened at a phost, he is always fool j enough to lv 'levt vny moderate lie. But | by-and-bye r.hei. -ame another flash, and I saw that the figure had moved a couple of feet farther along the wall, and had one hand stretched out, a3 if it was feeling its Avay in the darkness. Now I knew what was the matter. Some ghost had got into that suit of armour, and was walking around in it. "Probably tbe ghost that was inside of the armour found it difficult to walk in such a heavy suit of clothes. At any rate, he moved about as slow as a district messenger boy ; and if you know anything about district messenger boys in London, you know how slow that is. The next flash showed that the figure had left the wall along which it had been sidling, and was coming straight towards the bed. It was only about fifteen feet from mc, and my heirt began to beat at the rate of about a hundred and fifty to the minute. "However, my fright didn't last many minutes. I reflected that a weak ghost in a heavy suit of armour would be about as useless for fighting purposes as a professional pugilist who is in the habit of writing to the neAVspapers. I made up my mind that I would wait till the figure was close to my bed, and that I would then jump on it and upset it on the floor, the chances being that I AA*ould have plenty of time to find the matches before the figure could get on its legs again. I gathered myself together for a spring, and waited tillaccording to my calculation—King Arthur Avas within striking distance. Then I threw back the bedclothes, and made a jump for my visitor. I struck him good and square and we both came down with as much rattle and clatter and bang as if we had been a dozen lengths of stove pipe. "I stood for a moment wondering what j I had better do with my visitor, just to teach him a useful lesson, when I happened to think of a stick of solder that I had bought one day when I wanted to mend several cracks in the breastplate of King Arthur. I lit my spirit lamp,, heated my soldering-iron, and laying King Arthur in a handy position on his back, began to soldor the different pieces of his armour together. I soldered his front and back plates till nothing less than a cold chisel could have unbuttoned them; I soldered his helmet tight to his shoulders, and I soldered hi 3 leg-pieces from the hip down to the foot. I Avorked over the job for a full hour, and when I had got through I had made him pretty near watertight. " ' Now, my ghostly friend,' I said, ' this will teach you not to come into a gentleman's bedroom and take liberties with his curiosities. You've put yourself into that suit of armour without leave, and you'll stay in it till I'm ready to let you out, which won't be for some time. I'll just tie your legs to the bedpost, so that you can't shuffle away before morning, and then I'll make up some of the sleep that you've deprived mc of with your foolish and indecent games.' " Well, I tied the figure's legs to the bedpost, and then I blew out the candle and went to bed again. When I woke up in the morning it was broad daylight, and the storm Avas over. I looked over the side of the bed to see hoAv King Arthur was getting on, and I never was more surprised in my life than I was to find that he had gone. I jumped up and looked under the bed, that being the only place of concealment in the room, but my friend wasn't there. The door was locked as usual, and the key was under my pillow. It was clear that King Arthur must have gone out by way of the window, and then I noticed that one of the front windows that looked out on the lagoon was partly open. I went and looked out of it, but there was no figure in armour in sight. The tide was unusually high—higher, in fact, than I had ever seen it before. Not a soul Avas stirring at that early hour, and after wondering what could possibly have become of my suit of armour and its wearer, I Av/ent back to bed for another nap." Simmons paused for a moment, and we all thought that he had finished his story. I was just about to ask him what his explanation of the walking suit of armour was, when he resumed. " Do any of you fellows read Italian ? " We all assured him that we did not.

" Then," said he, taking a newspaper cutting from his pocket-book, "I'll translates little F ara g ra ph that appeared in the Adriatico —the Venetian paper —ten days or so after my experience with King Arthur. Listen to this: —' Yesterday morning tAvo fishermen, Carlo Fabris and Antonio Scamozzi, made a discovery of the most horrible in the Canal of Burario. Seeing something shining under the water at low tido, they arrived to bring it to the surface. It was a complete suit of armour of the fifteenth century, m addition to being fastened in the usual way, tiie armour was soldered together, and when the fishermen had prized the \-isor of the helmet open, they were filled Avith horror to find that the corpse of a man, in an advanced state of decomposition, was enclosed in the armour. Evidently one treats of an atrocious murder, and the police are soon to make an important arrest.'"