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 positive that he had known
in life had been a rabid billiard player, and he neglected his family to
such an extent that the young reporter's mother once said that she hoped
that when he died he would have to play billiards continually for a few
millions of years as a just punishment. He was one of those who did not
seem to be having a good time at all.

Thinking that there might be things of more interest going on in other
parts of the place, the young newspaper man went out to the main hall.
There were things to see there.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MENDED GHOST

Just as the reporter was going out of the room he noticed a man hobbling
along in the most painful manner. The upper portion of his body was of
enormous proportions. Even the big gambler would have appeared dwarfed
beside this man. But, large as he was, he seemed somehow to be
unaccountably dwarfed, and the commendable curiosity belonging to
newspaper men caused him to try and discover the meaning of this state
of affairs.

As the man came hobbling along he tripped and would have fallen had not
the young man caught him in his arms and held him up. The young man
sustained him to a seat, and as he sank down in it he asked the ghost if
there was anything else he could do, or be of any further assistance.
The man, with the remarkable frankness that seemed to be a part and
parcel of everything down here, replied:

"No, nobody can't do nothing for me. It was all done when I was moved.
And it was done up good and brown too. Nobody can't now make my legs
whole again; no, not if they tried forever and forever. It is a shame,
that is just what it is!"

"Would you mind telling me what it is that has happened to you? I am
sure it must be something unusual, and if I can help you I need not say
how gladly I would try."

"No; you can't help me, nor nobody else can't. But if you like I will
tell you about it and maybe someone else may be spared if you put a
piece in the paper about it."

This caused the reporter to break out in a cold sweat, for he now felt
almost afraid to think. The ghost resumed:

"I don't believe that nobody cares about us when we are once dead. I
died and was buried in a vault under the old church that stands
somewhere in Amity Street or close by. It may be gone now for all I
know, for I haven't been there for a long time, and I don't care if the
old shebang is torn down, for it is to that that I owe my misery. Just
look at me! I was a giant in my life, and stood seven feet in my
stockings and was big according. But, when my time came I was sick and
died like the weakest critter of them all. My folks paid the seven
dollars to have me put into the receiving vault like the rest. I was
pretty comfortable for the first year. The rule was that when new
corpuses came in they must be put into the receiving vault the first
year. Afterwards they were put into the back vault to make room for the
new comers. There was shelves in the first one, and nobody couldn't
crowd his neighbors, but in the back vault he was laid just one coffin
on top of another, and nothing between them. At one time there was over
five thousand corpuses under the church, but hardly anybody knew it.

"The most of the coffins was old what was in the back vault, specially
the lower line, and often when a new fellow was put in on top of the
other lot the old coffins would mash down to nothing, and nothing of the
body would be left, but the bones, and you can just guess how that
squeezed. They kept on piling more and more until even with the
crumbling old coffins there was no more room. Then the trustees or
whoever it was that had the say, decided that we must all be moved to
York Bay, and they set about moving us."

The reporter was deeply interested in this, and followed every word with
the greatest care, for if it turned out to be true after he should be in
a position to verify it, he intended to write it up for the benefit of
humanity. The ghost accepted the chair which the young man brought him
and continued his story.

 The mended ghost.

"Them trustees thought that the sooner the job was done and the quieter
they was about it the better it would be, and there was a whole bunch of
fellows come to do it. They busted all the coffins what wasn't already
busted, and they threw them into one heap, tore out all the linings, and
took off the shrouds, that was left, and they threw them into one heap
to sell for old rags. And all the plates and handles was took along with
the rest. Then they brought a lot of common pine boxes. All the corpuses
what wasn't claimed by the folks related to the corpus was just chucked
into them, sometimes three and more in one. When they got three or four
into one box and the lid wouldn't shut, they jumped on the top or jammed
the bones down till it did. One woman had all her ribs broken and
several others had their breastbones stove in to get enough of them into
one box. There was one box fixed for three, and they chucked me in that
head foremost. There was not half room enough, so my legs stuck out over
two feet, and to make me fit in what did them dumb fools do but take a
spade and just naturally chop off my feet right in the middle of the
legs, and threw them in, and that is how I am in this fix. I tied them
up the best I could, but to get a purchase I had to lap them as you see.
They don't feel solid. I expect to fall down every step I take. See how
I had to fix them."

As he said this, the poor giant, shorn not of his strength but of his
length, stuck out his offending feet. Surely enough they were chopped
off as he said, for the marks of the sharp spade were still visible. The
two ends of the bones to each leg had been, as he said, spliced by
sliding them past each other and then tying them in place. They lapped
at least twelve inches and that cut the man's stature down two whole
feet. The worst feature about it was that the parts were not, and could
not be made solid enough to make locomotion safe or comfortable.

"If ever I get out of here alive," thought the reporter, "I shall make
it impossible for folks to kick me around like that. I shall have it
fixed so that my body will be cremated and the ashes hidden so that
nobody can ever find them. Then he spoke:

"Your case is certainly a hard one, and I am surprised that the board of
health ever allowed such things. Surely they must have known of it."

"Do you know, that affair was just the cause of the law that was passed
making it necessary to have a Coroner's inquest on every body, and all
the things that them fellows had piled up to sell was took away and
burnt. The Police Gazette took and printed pictures about it, and that
is the first time that I remember of seeing big headlines, and they was
all about 'the awful desecration of the dead,' and the trusteeses had to
do a lot of things to keep the people from making a fuss. After that
they was a little more careful what they done to the bodies, but it was
too late to do anything for me. This here affair was in about 1

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