THE REPORTER'S DREAM.

Observer, 21 December 1893, Page 23

THE REPORTER'S DREAM.

At last Ward's turn to spin a yarn came round, but he protested he had none and could think of none. The glasses, however, had been replenished three or four times in the interim, and the company being decidedly mellow would take no denial. Ward was obliged to surrender at discretion. " Well, gentleman," he said, in despair, " I can't favour you with a ghost tale, for to tell you the truth I have cudgelled my brains to no purpose to recollect one, and I'm a mighty bad hand at invention. If you will insist I must fall back on a dream." " Right you are, old man," sang out the Hebrew gentleman, who was now more than half -seas over, " but, mind, if you crib from the chairman's little romance you've got to shout for all hands." Ward merely replied that he would rather shout for all hands at once than tell the yarn, as there was precious little in it. The challenge was not accepted and he therefore rather nervously commenced: "You must be told first of all," he said, " that it is a kind of tradition in our family that the dream of a funeral betokens not a marriage, which would conform to the usual idea that dreams are to be interpreted by their opposites so to speak, but a death in the family. Now lam not at all superstitious, and yet I could mention some instances within my remembrance wherein the dream of a funeral preceded the death of more than one of my relatives. Let that pass, however. The dream I have to relate is my own and concerns myself. So far I have told no one of it •I am not inclined to treat it seriously ; and it just occurs to me that you may as well be admitted to my confidence and allowed to have a test case of the value of •dreams in foretelling events. If my marching orders are on the way, all right ; every man of us must bite the dust in his turn. At any rate, I fancy I'm a likely enough life for an insurance canvasser. I think I could hold my own in a street row and if there's a fellow here who will give me a couple of yards in a hundred yards nutter I'm his Moses. Now, gentlemen, I didn't intend to blow the penny trumpet, but the liquor is good and you'll excuse me. Well, here is the dream : — "Last week I was "doing" the annual ball of a local volunteer corps for my paper, and as there were some pretty girls there I got through my "copy" as quickly as I could reel it off, and re. turned to the ball-room where I danced right up till two o'clock. Then I had the pleasure of escorting home a very attractive little girl whose name wild horses would not drag from me. By three I was in bed thoroughly fagged out, and needing no lullaby to hush me to sleep. That night, or rather early morning, I had a vivid dream. I thought I was tooling a ' bike ' along Manchester-street in the direction of Oxford Terrace when, at one of the street intersections, I came suddenly in sight of a funeral procession close at hand. I was about to hurry on when I noticed that the head of the procession immediately behind the hearse consisted of the office employees, from the literary staff downwards. By the crowds of welldressed people on the footpaths I recognised it was Sunday afternoon. Greatly perplexed as to whose funeral it

could be, for I was unaware of any one iv the office having died, I dismounted, propped my ' bike ' up against a building, took my place in the procession alongside a chum and asked him whose funeral it was. He took no notice of me, nor did the others. I remounted the ' bike ' and followed to the cemetery. The coffin was lifted out of the hearse, and as soon as it was placed over the grave I read my name on the plate. I looked for the date, but could only read " 1S7 — ;" the last figure I could not make out at all although I was sure it was there. No one took the slightest notice of me, try how I would. At length ail was over, and I got on my bicycle again and steered for home. On the way the machine stumbled over a large stone ; I tumbled off and woke up with a start to find my landlady banging at the door to know if I wanted my breakfast in bed." Ward ceased speaking, and Yernon exclaimed, "Is that all ; well, I'm blowed. You newspaper fellows do like to string on people on the ' To-be-continued-in-our-next' principle. Now, I don't like the penny dreadful sort of thing, especially when the chapter leading up to the verge of an exciting incident knocks suddenly off, leaving you in suspense." To this outburst Ward smilingly replied, " I told you not to expect much, but you would have my yarn instead of the liquor. ' You pays your money and you takes your choice,' as the doodle-em-buck man says on the course." The glasses were empty, the yarn was spun out, and the company broke up. Next morning I was off by the Southern train, and as pressmen are notoriously bad correspondents months rolled by and I heard no more of Ward. It was in the following winter that I again got news of him. And the news was startling enough in all conscience. One afternoon, as I was' preparing to leave the office, a telegram was put into my hand. I opened it leisurely and read these lines — " Come at once if you would see the last of me. Remember the dream. — Wakd." Not a word further to throw light upon the communication except that the telegram had been despatched from Christchurch. It was a busy week, and I was unable to get away before Saturday. When I reached the Cathedral City on Saturday night I found that "Ward had died the previous day, and that . the funeral was fixed for Sunday. It appears that on the Queen's Birthday Ward had spent the holiday with a large picnic party, and that he took an active share in the athletic sports which formed part of the programme. After winning a quarter-mile flat race he foolishly threw himself on the grass to cool

instead of putting on his clothes at once. The result was a chill, developing into inflammation of the lungs, and ending in rapid consumption. I attended the funeral, and strangely enough it followed the route mentioned by "Ward in the account of his dream. More singular still, when the coffin was drawn from the hearse and I looked at the metal plate upon the lid, the last figure of the year upon the painted inscription appeared to be absent. It may be that I stood at such an angle from the grave that the sunlight threw a glare on this last figure, but to my scrutinising gaze it seemed to be absent. However, it wanted not this detail to complete the melancholy fulfilment of the dream. THE END.