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s, as I said, so painfully modern. It is now too late
to talk much and so I will say good-bye until next year. And do not
forget that my mummy case is in the main aisle, near the archway leading
to the second room. You cannot miss it, besides I will be there waiting
for you. We can talk at our ease, and I do hope that some way can be
devised by which I can be taken back to Egypt. Ah, dear Egypt, where
rain and thunder come not and snow and ice are unknown."

"I will certainly be there if I am alive, and-beshrew me-(this sounded
like the sort of thing one ought to say to a princess)-if I don't find
some way to get you back to Egypt once more."

Then bowing to the princess he withdrew to make place for a man who had
been standing there some time waiting to approach her.

"I wonder what has become of the Sociable Ghost?" thought the young man.
He looked around, and seeing so many ghosts, and no sign of his friend,
he suddenly felt himself grow very uneasy. What if he could not find his
way out of this place? But his heart beat a little more regularly as the
floor manager shouted loudly:

"Ladies and Gentlemen: We are about to be specially favored by hearing a
song composed and sung by our friend, Capt. ---. He assures us that no
one else has ever heard it, as he used to sing it only at night when at
sea during storms. I have the honor-Captain ---."

Here the floor manager bowed and retired. The Captain proved to be the
ghost who had brought the young man down here, and he took his place
while the invisible music burst forth with a strong rush of sound that
reminded the young man of the winds and waves in a storm at sea. The
ghost began in a deep bass voice:

"With a hey and a ho for the white sea horses, Plunging and tossing on
ocean's crest; With a hey and a ho for the warning they give us, The
sailor's heart sinks low in his breast. They fight fierce battles there
in the water, Till the surface is covered white with foam, The waters
toss and are churned to lather That touches the edge of heaven's dome.
Deep in the depths the shadows thicken, As gather the sharks from down
below, And high in the heavens the storm clouds hover, As prancing
fiercely the white horses go. Then in the black darkness we hark to the
breakers, Dashing upon the bleak rocks their foam, Beaten to froth by
the white sea horses, And none of the sailors reaches his home."

As this song was finished there was a regular salvo of applause, and in
more ways than one, for the clapping of the fleshless hands was like the
cracking of musketry. The ghost seemed to be pleased by the evident
appreciation of his efforts, and sauntered over to the young man who
expressed his pleasure so warmly that even an opera singer would have
felt satisfied with such approbation and he requested permission to copy
down the song, for sung in a grand and sonorous basso it had seemed to
be a fine one.

When the last few desultory claps of applause at this song had died away
the floor manager called out:

"Take your partners for a quadrille."

In a minute there was such a bustle that the newspaper man could
scarcely hear himself think, but soon the sets were formed, and the
whole immense place was filled with dancers, all in sets for quadrille.
The music changed at the right moment, and the floor manager called out
in stentorian tones:

"Salute your partners." And they all bowed in the regulation manner.
Considering the almost universal poverty of wearing apparel, the ghosts
danced and made a graceful appearance. There was scarcely enough cloth
in good condition to have made a dress, but that fact did not seem to
strike them as worth consideration. The manager cried:

"First two forward and back, cross over, balance to your partner, back
to your place, all promenade." Continuing he led them through all the
mazes of what he called allemand right, allemand left, all sashay, and
so on until the whole was finished.

All the ghosts appeared to enjoy the free movement of the dance and to
them it mattered little if the usual attire for such functions was
conspicuous by its absence. The young man thought that as they had
ghostly food and drink, furniture and decorations, perhaps they imagined
their clothes as well. Then he suddenly remembered those tables. It
struck him as curious that they had come and disappeared like things in
some fairy tale.

As he watched the dancers, who were now waltzing, he thought of a
curious experience that had happened to him a year ago. He had a ticket
to go to Albany on the day boat, and he thought it would be a pleasant
trip and a rest, for he had been working unusually hard for a fortnight.
He had never made this trip and thought he would enjoy the beauties of
the scenery, and incidentally, repose his mind.

The night before he was to make this trip he had a most vivid dream. He
thought he was in a primeval forest and saw huge misshapen monsters,
great prehistoric creatures, whose bones only now tell of their
existence. Among them he saw a monstrous elephant covered with hair, and
with immense tusks curved like those found among the eternal glaciers in
far off lands. There were other strange animals and giants. As he went
along he heard in one place a swishing like that of silks swirling in
the dance, and a soft rhythmic sound, but nothing could he see until he
suddenly turned a corner, and there was a room with hundreds of men and
women dancing, but they all seemed to him to be dead. He turned to find
some one who could explain this strange thing, but no one was near, and
when he turned to look at them again they had all disappeared and an
enormous gorilla stood in the place where they had been.

Then he awoke, and attended to his business of getting ready, and at the
last moment hurried down to the boat. After the manner of busy men he
reached there just as the bell was ringing, and when he went to hand in
his ticket, he remembered that he had left it on the bureau, safely
folded in a clean handkerchief. He said a word or two in appreciation of
the situation, and then said to himself that since he could not go to
Albany he would go to Rockaway. He had never been there, though it was
so near by. The boat was just ready to start and the price for a round
trip ticket but fifty cents.

The sail down was uneventful, and as it was a week day and near the close
of the season, he found very little to interest him there, so when he
came to a museum, such as flourish at places like that, he decided to
enter there to while away the time until the boat was ready to sail. As
he entered the door, he saw the primeval forest of his dream, and every
monster he found in just the same position. He thought he was living in
the days long before man had entered into the history of the world.
Wondering at this dream which had so curiously "come out," he suddenly
found himself at the same place of which he had dreamed, where he had
seen the dead folks dancing. He heard the same soft swish of silk, and
the same subdued murmur

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