The Ghost's Photograph.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 6407, 7 January 1888, Page 4

The Ghost's Photograph.

(WKITTEN BY THE LATE KICHARD WINTER. (Marlborough Express,) Don't call me superstitious, you know, for that's just what I'm not. A middle-aged gentleman, whoße waißt is shedding its buttons as it expands to the surrounding universe (I'm no more poetical than I'm superstitious), isn't in the least degree likely to be troubled by ghosts or hobgoblins. Do you think he is? Well, we shall see. I may have had an Adventure in my time— who hasn't ?— but for all that I'd sleep in a yawning ohurchyard (how, by the way, does a churchyard

/awn), provided I'd make myself jomfortable in my blankets, and laid >n a stock of Dutch courage an hour >r two before it was dark. Of course t would. Now, for an Adventure in ••ealifcy, commend me to my dear 'riend Simpkins. Poor old boy, he iad the misfortune to fall in love when he was young young (in the lays when we wont gipsy ing, a long ;ime ago), and the Court of Queen's Bench wouldn't let him fall out of love again until he had paid three hundred and costs for breach of promise, There's an adventure for you— a regular hair-staad-on-ender ! Then there was that jolly old blade, Buffins, who never had a penny more than a hundred a year in his life, and failed in a gentlemanly manner for a couple of thousand. My eyes, didn't his creditors think that was an Adventure ! But mine wasn't anything of that sort. No such horrors for me thank you. I pay rates in two parishes, and go to church regularly in one. Behold me, one pleasant afternoon at the London Bridge Railway Station, on my way to Brighton. " Beautiful Brighton, city of song," sacred to returned Eaßt India nabobs with queer livers, fat Jewesses, Cockey << gents " out for a Saturday to Monday holiday. It was no holiday excursion that was taking me to the "Queen of watering places." Nothing of the sort. The wife of my bosom, partner of my joys, and reveller in my sorrows, didn't allow anything o£ that kind. Had I gone to Brighton on pleasure bent, she would have been with me. All married men know what sort of a holiday tJtat would have been. No; it was on business I was bound. A relative had died and appointed me executor, and I was off to his funeral, and to look after his estate. The testator himself I had never seen in my life, though, such was his confiding disposition (quite like the rich uncle one sees on the stage — and nowhere else) he had not only made me his trustee, but inserted my name in a warm corner of his will. On the wings of expectation I posted away to Brighton, making myself as comfortable as possible (and that wasn't much) in one of those firßt-class compartments with elbow divisions, which, like London fogs, brandied port, and a House of Lords, do so much to make an Englishman love his country. At Croydon I fell asleep, there being, when we left that station, not a single soul in the compartment but myself. The rattling and roaring of the train as it rushed through the chalk cliff tunnels woke me half way to Red Hill, and to my profound astonishment there sat on the seat opposite me a portly, genial-looking gentleman, of about the same age as myself. I knew that the train was timed not to atop between Croydon and Red Hill, and how he got there was to me a mystery. But there he was — smiling as he looked out of the window at the pleasant Surrey landscape — and even smiling as his eye roved into the 1 carriage again, and " took the measure " of my doubtless surprised face. There was no need to rub my eyes — it was four o'clock in the afternoon, my lunch had been a mere "snack," my pocket pistol was still half full of sherry, and I was most astonishingly wide awake. Assuming, however, that my fellow passenger must have got in at some station where the train (contrary to time-table)stopped while I was asleep, I took a good look at him. The fate3'had thrown us together, and it was just as well I should see v what sort of a sample they had given me. The man was an utter stranger, but I noticed with a good deal of interest that he had two thumbs on his left hand, which carelessly caressed his ample watch chain ; and that shining out from his snowy shirt-front (I felt inclined to ask him the name of his laundress) were two studs forming miniature compasses. They were set in small diamonds, but the needle wobbled about in the middle as " tis its nature to." Apparently we were both Englishmen, and had never been introduced. Yet, oddly enough, contrary to, the custom of our race, we fell into conversation, and a pleasant companion I found my friend to be. Having exhausted the weather and the crops, about which he seemed to know little, and the latest murder and suicide, about which he seemed to know a good deal moro, he casually remarked that he had travelled a good deal in his time, and had never known such a likely day for a railway accident. And why the deuce do you say that, said I with some slight suspicion (remembering his mysterious entry into the carriage), of my fellow travel ler's sanity. Can't say, he replied, but I think it's in the air. Now how on earth a railway accident, which is a sternly practical sort of earthly occurrence with nothing fairy-like about it, could be in the air I couldn't imagine. People will make such mysterious observations sometimes. One could have understood him if Jules Verne's railway to the moon had been open for traffic, and there had been — as on every well-regulated railway in the universe there is certain to be soon after it opens — a bloodthirsty smash up. But he didn ( t give me much time to think about it. The fact is, said my fellow passenger still smiling delightfully, I've an idea a smash is due on this line about this time. I don't mind it myself — I've been in 'em before — but they ain't nice to those who are not used to them." He smiled so sweetly at me at that moment, that, but for the thoughtofa bereaved widow sighing in Bloomsbury — and suing the Company for damages to cove my mutilated corps — I really believe I could have fallen into his arms, wept upon the compasses of his ihirt front, and exclaimed, mysterious stranger, let us be smashed up together. > But I didn't. I only ruminated, and wished to Heaven that the train had got to Red Hill, so that I could :hange my compartment. I'm afraid you don't like accilents, continued he. It's a singular .hing that whatever train I'm in ilways comes to grief in some way )r the other. There was the 4.20 rom Brighton to Hastings — that ."an down a siding ; there was the 5.4S from Croydon to London ; that had its boiler blow up ; there was 1 heStop, in the name of all that's holy, said I, I'll get out at the next ;tation. Who you are, or what 3'ou are, I don't know and don't care, but 1 won't travel in the same train with you ! Perhaps you're wise, calmly re-

plied my fellow traveller. It would have been well for others had they followed your example. He was moody and silent for a few minutes, and we both calm<-d our feelings by a suck at the pocket pistol. I like you, my dear sir, he said, resuming the conversation, I like your caution. Let us exchange cards. I handed him my paste board, which he pocketed without looking at ; and in return received from him, not his card, but his photogaaph ! That'll do as well, said he, —but here we are at Red Hill. Still holding the photograph in my hand — it was an admirable likeness, by the way, but had no name upon it — I put my head out of the window, and tried to op.:n the carriage door. It was locked, and it flashed across my mind at that moment that the guard had locked it (a pleasing practice they have on English railways) at London Bridge. Soon came the guard, however, a. id liberated me. My fellow passenger nodded amiably, I wished him good day, and left the carriage. Did anyone get in between Orydon and Red Hill, guard? I asked. Not a soul, sir ; how could they, when the train didn't stop. Before I could put another question the guard jumped into his bax and the train was away on its destination. I just caught a glimse of my late fellow passenger's jolly free at the window. As for me, I fek I could no more travel in that train than I could fly. So I left the station and made for the adjacent town of Reigate, where I passed a night, disturbed by dreams in which two gigantic thumbs dandgling two glittering compeses stood over my prostrate form in a railway .cqllision. That was a terrible accident in the Clayton tunnel last night, said my right-hand neighbour next morning at the breakfast table (I am pa.ticular about its being my right-hand neighbour, for my lefthand did nothing but gore muffins and snort audibly at intervals. It produced a marked impression on my mind at the time.) What accident was that? said I remembering in a flash my fellow traveller and his ominous talk. The afternoon train from Red Hill met one coming from Brighten in the middle of the tunnel; and about 50 people were killed, and goodnessknowshowmany wounded. He passed me the morning paper. It was too true. There was a list of the killed and wounded, and a description of the bodies of those whose name had not been discovered. No mention, I noticed, of a portly gentleman with two thumbs, and compases on his shirt front. In an hour's time I was in another train, and on my way again to Brighton. Confidence had been restored to my shaken nerves by Ine state nent in the paper, that Ihe tunnel had been cleared and traffic resumed. What a grim satisfaction usch a statement must be to the friends of the deceased ! You always read it the day after a railway accident. It's like the mysterious but generally fanciful statemeni, always made after a murder, that the police have established a clue to the actual prepetrator. Unluckily the accident and the tunuel are stern realities, and the clue seldom is. It was with a shudder that I noticed the debris of the accident lying by the side of the line at ihe mouth of the tunnel, and that I saw (or fancied I saw) stains of blood on some labourer's clothing that hid very close to the rails. I shut my my eyes, and thought I saw the thumbs and the compases smashed to atoms under the wheels of a locomotive with lamps in the dai kness like fiery eyes ! I was glad to feel I was awake and nearing Brighton.