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 nothing even to the widows.
Now, of course, I have no means of knowing much about these matters, but
it seems to me to be an outrage if it is true. I used to write poetry on
shipboard, at night, and I am sure that I should not have liked this sort
of treatment, if it is true."

"Some of them are several times meaner than any you have mentioned. But,
show them to me if you please," said the reporter, who had a bone to
pick with two or three dead publishers.

"I will. I am sorry for poor Bradford, for they have gone and restored
his whole epitaph. He was good to me when I first came down and kindly
taught me the rules. It is a bit rough until you have learned the ropes
after you are dead."

"Will you excuse me if I ask you a question? I have always been led to
think that those who are dead dislike to hear the word dead. They are
supposed to prefer to hear, 'passed into spirit life' and 'gone to
Summerland' instead. All the mediums use that word, in palliation and
instead of the harsher one. Dead, gives one a shock to hear," asked the
young man in a laudable desire to learn all he could.

"Poppycock and moonshine!" was the unexpected response. "There is no
such thing as a medium. No, sir; they get your money and-do you suppose
that one of them could get you the invitation to come down here tonight?
You are soon to enter the very doors of ghostdom, but not through the
efforts of any medium. No, sir; they trade upon your sense of loss and
sorrow when anyone of yours dies, and they foster and encourage your
desire to penetrate the mystery of the future life. They get your money
by fraud, working upon your best sentiments. They ought to be
keelhauled, and should be if I had my way. I'd string them to the
yardarm and whack them with a rope's end. If the tie that bound you to
anyone you loved is broken by death there is no third party that can
come and for a certain sum in cash become the medium of communication
between you, and I say, lick the man that tells you different. You are
getting this straight from a real ghost. In my warmth I had almost
forgotten that you asked if we who are dead dislike to hear anyone say
the word Dead. Quite the contrary, for we are dead and it would be very
silly to try to disguise the fact, and we do not try to down here. Fact
is truth and truth governs down here. Dead we are and dead we stay, and
after all I am not sure that we are not quite as well, and sometimes
better off, than when alive. If we miss some things we escape others.
Well, come on; but before we go let me say that the Trinity ghosts are
the hosts tonight and they feel themselves the most aristocratic ghosts
in the land, so I wished to caution you so that you would avoid hurting
anyone's feelings by seeming to doubt it."

"I shall be very careful, sir, and hope you will be near enough to
forewarn me of any possible mistake. I assure you that I appreciate this
distinguished honor more than I can say. But, I should like to ask if
any of the Vanderbilts will be here tonight?"

"No, young man; there will be no Vanderbilts here tonight. But I can
tell you something else that may interest you, and that is where old
John Jacob Astor is tonight. You have doubtless heard that the old man
was a worker from head to foot. Work was ingrained in his thrifty
nature. He wandered all over America to buy up fur skins. For a long
time he carried them on his back, so we are told, until his business had
grown so that he required help, and could afford to pay for it. Even
then he would gladly have carried them all, so great was his instinct of
thrift. Then, when he found he could not tie them up alone he bought a
baling press. This baling press he came to love. It marked for him the
very spirit of progress, though it is a clumsy old thing made of beams
and iron levers and screws. To this he confided his ambitions and joys
and sorrows. So when his year of dormant waiting is over, like ours, and
he is at liberty to amuse himself as he wishes for the few hours before
the penance begins, The Master lets him choose between this evening of
festivity and his own desire. His ghost is now down in the sub-cellar of
the great John Ruszits fur company, where the women of four generations
have brought their furs. This company was formed in 1851, and Astor died
a few years before. The new Ruszits company must have felt a certain
friendship for the old man, though there is no record of their ever
dining together, for when the old baling press was about to be sold for
junk, at auction, with the rest of the effects of the old fur house,
they purchased it and had it set up in the sub-cellar and have carefully
preserved it ever since. It is about thirty feet below the surface of
the street. It is pretty sure that the present members of the family
have no desire to keep it as an heirloom.

"That is about all of the old man's effects left intact, and he is
naturally drawn toward it, and now he is standing there in the pungent
odor of raw pelts, and turning that baling press for all he is worth and
if ghosts can sweat he is sweating now and enjoying himself in the
keenest delight."

"I should think he would prefer to spend the evening at the magnificent
library which his money gave to the world. That is a noble sight, and I
should think he would be glad to get out of the ground for a while."

"My young friend, John Jacob Astor, the founder of that family, loved
his business better than money. He could not be hired to leave the old
press for all the books there is in it. When he is debarred from his
present occupation he puts in his time turning over the raw furs in this
place and inhaling their pungent odor, familiar and redolent of the old
days. The rest of his time he sleeps and takes the repose which his
active spirit would not allow him on earth."

The young newspaper man thought a little about these things and
remembered that only a few days ago he had been in this very warehouse
where he had seen so much of beauty and value and yet missed seeing this
old baling press, and he rather wondered, too, how anyone could prefer
the penetrating odor of raw skins to the fresh air of night under the
stars. He could understand how the sight and feel of the soft finished
garments might appeal to one, but he only said:

"I don't see why the Family should care for a better name and fame than
that the old man left-that of an industrious, frugal and honest man-"

Before the young man could finish his sentence he became aware of a
perfect cloud of shadowy forms, and all seemed to be gathering around
him. He began to wish that he had gone for the whiskey and failed to
return. His companion sat on the edge of a tombstone from which he had
seemed to exude when he first made his appearance.

They had returned to that place while talking and as he did so he rubbed
his stubbed toe, and for a few minutes no one said or did anything. At
last the ghost said in a sibilant whisper:

"I think there would be time for one more smoke if you would b

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