Chapter VII (1)

That is the story of "Over the Plum-Pudding." That is why it never appeared. That is the explanation of the editor. I admit that in some ways the explanation seems scarcely credible, but it is in every respect truthful, and on my return from Manila I will prove it to all suspicious-minded persons who may choose to doubt it, for I can show them the copyright papers of the book, the advertisement of its approaching publication, my contract with Messrs. Hawkins, Wilkes and Speedway, and a few press notices I had myself prepared for its exploitation.

I can also prove that Mr. Kipling draws his characters so vividly and vigorously that they stand out like real people before us, and certainly if they can do that, there is no reason why they should not be able to do all that I have claimed they did do.

HORACE WILKINSON.

Bills, M.D.

Bills, M.D.

A CHRISTMAS GHOST I HAVE MET

t was the usual kind of a Christmas Eve. The snow was falling with its customary noiselessness, and the world was gradually taking on a mantle of white which made it look like a very attractive wedding-cake. It was upon this occasion that Old Bills materialized in my down-town study and got me out of a very unpleasant hole. The year had not been a very profitable one for me. My last book had been a comparative failure, having sold only 118,000 copies in the first six months, so that instead of receiving $60,000 in royalties on the first of November, as I had expected, I had fallen down to something like $47,000. There was a fraction of seven or eight hundred dollars--just what it was I cannot recall. Then my securities had, for one reason or another, failed to yield the customary revenue; some thirty or forty of my houses had not rented; taxes had increased--in short, I found myself at Christmas-time, with my wife and eight children expecting to be remembered, with less than $80,000 that I could spare in the bank.

To be sure, we had all agreed that this year we should avoid extravagance, and the little madame had informed me that she would be very unhappy if I expended more than $40,000 upon her present from myself. My daughter, too, like the sweet girl that she is, said, with a considerable degree of firmness, that she would rather have a check for $10,000 than the diamond necklace I had contemplated giving her; and my eldest son had sent word from college, in definite terms, that he didn't think, in view of the hard times, he would ask for anything more than a new pair of wheelers for his drag, three hunters, a T cart, a silver chafing-dish set, and a Corot for his smoking-room.

This spirit, as I say, permeated the household--even the baby babbled of economy, and thought he could get along with ruby jackstones and a bag of cats'-eyes to play marbles with. But even thus, as the reader can see for himself, $80,000 would not go far, and I was in despair. There is no greater trial in the world than that confronting a generously disposed father who suddenly finds himself at Christmas time without the means to carry out his wishes and to provide his little ones with the gifts which their training has justified them in expecting.

I was seated alone in my office, not having the courage to go home and tell my family of the horrid state of affairs, or, rather, putting off the evil hour, for ultimately the truth would have to be told. It was growing dark. Outside I could hear the joyous hum of the busy streets; the clanging of the crowded cable-cars, going to and fro, bearing their holiday burden of bundle-laden shoppers, seemed to sound musically and to tell of peace and good-will. Even the cold, godless world of commerce seemed to warm up with the spirit of the hour. I alone was in misery, at a moment when peace and happiness and good-will were the watchwords of humanity. My distress increased every moment as I conjured up before my mind's eye the picture of the coming morn, when my children and their mother, in serene confidence that I would do the right thing by them, should find the tree bare of presents, and discover, instead of the usual array of bonds and jewels, and silver services, and horses and carriages, and rich furs, and priceless books (the baby had cut his teeth the year before on the cover of the Grolier edition of Omar Khayyam, which, at a cost of $600, I had given him, bound in ivory and gold, with carbuncles adorning the back and the title set in brilliants)--discover, instead of these, I say, mere commonplace presents possessing no intrinsic worth--why, it was appalling to think of their disappointment! To be sure, I had purchased a suit of Russian sables for madam, and had concealed a certified check for $25,000 in the pocket of the dolman, but what was that in such times, hard as they were!

And you may imagine it was all exquisitely painful to me. Then, on a sudden, I seemed not to be alone. Something appeared to materialize off in the darker corner of the study. At first I thought it was merely the filming over of my eyes with the moisture of an incipient and unshed tear, but I was soon undeceived, for the thing speedily took shape, and a rather unpleasant shape at that, although there was a radiant kindliness in its green eyes.

"Who are you?" I demanded, jumping up and staring intently at the apparition, my hair meanwhile rising slightly.

"I'm Dr. Bills," was the response, in a deep, malarial voice, as the phantom, for that is all it was, approached me. "I've come to help you out of your troubles," it added, rather genially.

"Ah? Indeed!" said I. "And may I ask how you know I am in trouble?"

"Certainly you may," said the old fellow. "We ghosts know everything."

"Then you are a ghost, eh?" I queried, although I knew mighty well at the moment I first saw him that he was nothing more, he was so transparent and misty.

"At your service," was the reply, as my unexpected visitor handed me a gelatinous-looking card, upon which was engraved the following legend:

U. P. BILLS, M.D.,
"The Spook Philanthropist."
Troubles Cured While You Wait.

"Ah!" said I, as I read it. "You'll find me a troublesome patient, I am afraid. Do you know what my trouble is?"

"Certainly I do," said Bills. "You're a little short and your wife and children have expectations."

"Precisely," said I. "And here is Christmas on top of us and nothing for the tree except a few trifling gems and other things."

"Well, my dear fellow," said the kindly visitant, "if you'll intrust yourself to my care I'll cure you in a jiffy. There never was a case of immediate woe that I couldn't cure, but you've got to have confidence in me.

"Sort of faith cure, eh?" I smiled.

"Exactly," he replied. "If you don't believe in Old Bills, Old Bills cannot relieve your distress."

"But what do you propose to do, Doctor?" I asked. "What is your course of treatment?"

"That's my business," he retorted. "You don't ask your family physician to outline his general plan to you when you summon him to treat you for gout, do you?"

"Well, I generally like to know more of him than I know of you," said I, apologetically, for I had no wish to offend him. "For instance, are you allopath, or a homoeopath, or some hitherto untrodden path?"

"Something of a homoeopath," he admitted.

"Then you cure trouble with trouble?" I asked, rather more pertinently, as the event showed, than I imagined.

"I cure trouble with ease," he replied glibly. "You may accept or reject my services. It's immaterial to me."

"I don't wish to seem ungrateful, Doctor," said I, seeing that the old spook was growing a trifle irritated. "I certainly most gratefully accept. What do you want me to do?"

"Go home," he said, laconically.

"But the empty tree?" I demanded.

"Will not be empty to-morrow morning," said he, and he vanished.

I locked my study door and started to walk home, first stopping at the cafe down-stairs and cashing a check for $60,000. I had confidence in Old Bills, but I thought I would provide against possible failure; and I had an idea that on the way uptown I might perhaps find certain little things to please, if not satisfy, the children, which could be purchased for that sum. My surmise was correct, for, while Old Bills did his work, as will soon be shown, most admirably, I had no difficulty in expending the $60,000 on simple little things really worth having, between Pine Street and Forty-second. For instance, as I passed along Union Square I discovered a superb pair of pearl hat-pins which I knew would please my second daughter, Jenny, because they were just suited to the immediate needs of the talking doll she had received from her aunt on her birthday. They were cheap little pins, but as I paid down the $1,800 they cost in crisp hundred dollar bills they looked so stunningly beautiful that I wondered if, after all, they mightn't prove sufficient for little Jenny's whole Christmas, if Bills should fail. Then I met poor old Hobson, who has recently met reverses. He had an opera-box for sale for $2,500, and I bought it for Martha, my third daughter, who, though only seven years old, frequently entertains her little school friends with all the manner of a woman of fashion. I felt that the opera-box would please the child, although it was not on the grand tier. I also killed two birds with one stone by taking a mortgage for $10,000 on Hobson's house, by which I not only relieved poor old Hobson's immediate necessities, but, by putting the mortgage in my son Jimmy's stocking, enriched the boy as well. So it went. By the time I reached home the $60,000 was spent, but I felt that, brought up as they had been, the children would accept the simple little things I had brought home to them in the proper spirit. They were, of course, cheap, but my little ones do not look at the material value of their presents. It is the spirit which prompts the gift that appeals to them--Heaven bless 'em! I may add here, too, that my little ones did not even by their manner seem to grudge that portion of the $60,000 spent which their daddy squandered on his immediate impulses, consisting of a nickel extra to a lad who blacked his boots, thirty cents for a cocktail at the club, and a dime to a beggar who insisted on walking up Fifth Avenue with him until he was bought off with the coin mentioned--a species of blackmail which is as intolerable as it is inevitable on all fashionable thoroughfares.

But their delight as well as my own on the following morning, when the doctor's fine work made itself manifest, was glorious to look upon. I frankly never in my life saw so magnificent a display of gifts, and I have been to a number of recent millionaire weddings, too. To begin with, the most conspicuous thing in the room was the model of a steam yacht which Old Bills had provided as the family gift to myself. It was manifest that the yacht could not be got into the house, so Bills had had the model sent, and with it the information that the yacht itself was ready at Cramp's yard to go into commission whenever I might wish to have it. It fairly took my breath away. Then for my wife was a rope of pearls as thick as a cable, and long enough to accommodate the entire week's wash should the laundress venture to borrow it for any such purpose. All the children were fitted out in furs; there were four gold watches for the boys, diamond tiaras and necklaces of pearls and brilliant rings for the girls. My eldest son received not only the horses and carriages and the Corot he wanted, but a superb gold mounted toilet set, and a complete set of golf clubs, the irons being made of solid silver, the shafts of ebony, with a great glittering diamond set in the handle of each, these all in a caddy bag of seal-skin, the fur shaved off. There was a charming little naphtha launch and a horseless carriage for Jimmy, and, as for the baby, it was very evident that Old Bills had a peculiarly tender spot in his ghostly make-up for children. I doubt if the finest toy-shops of Paris ever held toys in greater variety or more ingenious in design. There were two armies of soldiers made of aluminum which marched and fought like real little men, a band of music at the head of each that discoursed the most stirring music, cannons that fired real shot--indeed, all the glorious panoply of war was there in miniature, lacking only blood, and I have since discovered that even this was possible, since every one of the little soldiers was so made that his head could be pulled off and his body filled with red ink. Then there was a miniature office building of superb architectural design, with little steam elevators running up and down, and throngs of busy little creatures, manipulated by some ingenious automatic arrangement, rushing hither and thither like mad, one and all seemingly engaged upon some errand of prodigious commercial import. Another delightful gift for the baby was a small opera-house, and a complete troupe of little wax prime donne, and zinc tenors, and brass barytones, with patent removable chests, within which small phonographs worked so that the little things sang like so many music--boxes, while in the chairs and boxes and galleries were matinee girls and their escorts and their bonnets and their enthusiastic applause--truly I never dreamed of such magnificent things as Old Bills provided for the occasion. He had indeed got me out of my immediate difficulty, and when I went to bed that night, after the happiest Christmas I had ever known, I called down the richest blessings upon his head; and why, indeed, should I not? We had between $400,000 and $500,000 worth of presents in the house, and they had not cost me a penny, outside of the $60,000 I had spent on the way uptown, and what could be more conducive to one's happiness than such a Yuletide Klondike as that?

This was many years ago, dear reader, before the extravagant methods of the present day crept into and somewhat poisoned the Christmas spirit, but from that day to this Old Bills has never ceased to haunt me. He has been my constant companion from that glorious morning until to-day, when I find myself telling you of him, and, save at the beginning of every recurring month, when I am always very busy and somewhat anxious about making ends meet, his society is never irksome. Once you get used to Bills he becomes a passion, and were it not for his singular name I think I should find him a constant source of joy.

It rather dampened my ardor, I must confess, when I found that the initials of the good old doctor, U. P., stood for Un Paid, but if you can escape the chill and irksomeness of that there is no reason why the poorest of us all may not derive much real joy in life from the good things we can get through Bills.

In justice to the readers of this little tale, I should perhaps say, in conclusion, that I read it to my wife before sending it out, and she asserts that it was all a dream, because she says she never received that rope of pearls. To which I retorted that she deserved to, anyhow--but, dream or otherwise, the visitation has truly been with me for many years, and I fear the criticism of my spouse is somewhat prompted by jealousy, for she has stated in plain terms that she would rather go without Christmas than see me constantly haunted by Bills: but, after all, it is a common condition, and it does help one at Christmas time in an era when the simple observance of the season, so characteristic of the olden time, has been superceded by a lavish expenditure which would bring ruin to the richest of us were it not for the benign influence of Bills, M.D.

The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost

The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost

arley was a Freshman at Blue Haven University, and, like many other Freshmen, had a wholesome fear of examinations. In the football field he was courageous to the verge of foolhardiness, but when he sat in his chair in the examination-room, with a paper covered with questions before him, he was as timid as a fawn. There was no patent flying or revolving wedge method of getting him through the rush-line of Greek, nor by any known tackle could he down the half-backs of mathematics and kick the ball of his intellect through the goal-posts, on the other side of which lay the coveted land of Sophomoredom. Hence Parley, who had spent most of his time practicing for his class eleven, found himself at the end of his first term in a state of worry like unto nothing he had ever known before.

"It would be tough to fail at this stage of the game," he thought, as he reflected upon what his father would say in the event of his failure. "It wouldn't be so bad to flunk later on, but for a chap to fall down at the very beginning of his race wouldn't reflect much credit on his trainer, and I think it very likely the governor would be mad about it."

"Of course he would!" said a voice at his side. "Who wouldn't?"

Parley jumped, he was so startled. Nor was it surprising that even so cool and physically strong a person as he should for an instant know the sensation of fear. If you or I should happen to be lying off in our room before a flickering log-fire, which furnished the only illumination, smoking a pipe, reflecting, and all alone, I think we would ourselves, superior beings as we are, be startled to hear a strange voice beside us answering our unspoken thoughts. This was exactly what had happened in Parley's case. Now that the football season was over, he realized that too much time had been spent on that and too little upon his studies, and conditions were all he could see in the future. This naturally made Parley very unhappy, and upon this particular night he had retired to his room to be alone until his blue spell should wear off. Several of his classmates had knocked at his door, but he had made no response, and in order further to give the impression that he was not within he had turned out his gas and table lamp, and sat pulling viciously away at his pipe, watching the flames on the hearth as they danced to and fro upon the logs, which last hissed and spluttered away as if they approved neither of the dancing flames nor of Parley himself.

Straining his eyes in the direction whence the voice had seemed to come, Parley endeavored to ascertain who had spoken, but all was as it had been before. There was no one in sight, and the freshman settled back again in his chair.

"Humph!" he ejaculated. "Guess I must have fallen asleep and dreamed it."

"Not a bit of it," interposed the voice again. "I'm over here in the arm-chair."

Parley sprang to his feet and grabbed up his "banger," as the big cane he had managed to hold to the bitter end in the rush of cherished memory was called.

"Oh, you are, are you?" he cried, controlling his fear with great difficulty; and his voice would hardly come, his throat and lips had become so dry from nervousness. "And, pray, how the deuce did you get in?" he demanded, peering over into the arm-chair's capacious depths--still seeing nothing, however.

"Oh, the usual way," replied the voice--"through the door."

"That's not so," retorted Parley. "Both doors are locked, so you couldn't. Why don't you come out like a man where I can see you, and tell the truth, if you know how?"

"Can't," said the other--"that is, I _can't_ come out like a _man_."

"Ah!" sneered Parley. "What are you then--a purple cow?"

"I don't know what a purple cow is," replied the voice, in sepulchral tones. "I never saw one. They didn't have 'em in my day, only plain brown ones--cows of the primary colors."

"Ah?" said Parley, smartly. The invisible thing was speaking so meekly that his momentary terror was passing away. "You had blue cows in your day, eh?"

"Oh, my, yes!" replied the strange visitor; "lots of 'em. Take any old cow and deprive her of her calf, and she becomes as blue as indigo."

Here the voice laughed, and Parley joined.

"You're a clever--ah--what?-- A clever It," he said.

"You might call me an It if you wanted to," said the stranger. "Possibly that's my general classification. To be more specific, however, I'm a ghost."

"Ho! Nonsense'" retorted Parley. "I don't believe in ghosts."

"That may be," said the other, calmly. "I didn't when I was here, a living human being with two legs and a taste for smoke, like you. But I found out afterwards that I was all wrong. When you get to be a ghost, if you have any self-respect you'll believe in 'em. Furthermore, if I wasn't a ghost I couldn't have got in here through two closed doors to speak to you."

"That's so," replied Parley. "I didn't think of that. Still, you can't expect me to believe you without some proof. Suppose you let me whack you over the head with this stick? If it goes through you without hurting you, all well and good. If it doesn't, and knocks you out, I sha'n't be any the worse off. What do you say?"

"I'm perfectly willing," said the voice; "only look out for your chair. You might spoil it."

"Afraid, eh?" said Parley.

"For the chair, yes," replied the spirit. "Still it isn't my chair, and if you want to take the risk, I'm willing. You can kick a football through my ribs if you wish. It's all the same to me."

"I'll try the banger," said Parley, dryly. "Then if you are a sneak-thief, as I half suspect, you'll get what you deserve. If you're what you claim to be, all's well for both of us. Shall I?"

"Go ahead," replied the ghost, nonchalantly.

Parley was more surprised than ever, and was beginning to believe that It was a ghost, after all. No sneak-thief would willingly permit himself to be whacked on the head with any such adamantine weapon as that which Parley held in his hand.

"Never mind," said he, relenting. "I won't."

"Yon _must_, now," said the other. "If you don't, I can't help you at all. I can't be of service to a person who either can't or won't believe in me. If you want to pass your examinations, whack."

"Bah! What idiocy!" cried Parley. "I--"

"Go ahead and whack," persisted the voice. "As hard as you know how, too, if you want to. Pretend you are cornered by a wild beast, and have only one chance to escape, and whack for dear life. I'm ready. My arms are folded, and I'm sitting right here over the embroidered cushion that serves as the seat of your chair."

"I've caught you, there," said Parley. "You aren't sitting there at all. I can see the embroidered cushion."

"Which simply proves what I say," retorted the ghost. "If I were not a ghost, but a material thing like a sneak-thief, you couldn't see through me. Whack away."

And Parley did so. He raised the banger aloft, and brought it down on the spot where the invisible creature was sitting with all the force at his command.

"There," said the ghost, calmly, from the chair. "Are you satisfied? It didn't do me any damage; though I must say you've knocked the embroidery into smithereens."

It was even as he said. The force with which Parley had brought the heavy stick down had made a great rent in the soft cushion, and he had had his trouble for his pains.

"Well, do you believe in me now?" the ghost demanded, Parley, in his surprise and wrath, having found no words suited to the occasion.

"I suppose I've got to," he replied, ruefully gazing upon the ruined cushion. "That's what I get for being an idiot. I don't know--"

"It's what you get for pretending that you can't believe all that you can't see," put in the ghost, "which is a very grave error for a young man--or an old one, either, for that matter--to make."

Parley sat down, and was silent for a moment.

"Well," he said at length, "granting that there are such things as ghosts, and that you are one, what the deuce do you come bothering me for? Just wanted to plague me, I suppose, and get me to smash my furniture."

"Not at all," retorted the ghost. "I didn't ask you to smash your furniture. On the contrary, I warned you that that was what you were going to do. You suggested smashing me, and I told you to go ahead."

Parley couldn't deny it, but he could not quite conceal his resentment.

"Don't you think I'm bothered enough by the prospect of a beautiful flunk at my exams, without your trickling in through the doorway to exasperate me?" he demanded.

"Who has come to exasperate you, Parley?" said the ghost, a trifle irritably. "I haven't. I came to help you, but, by Jingo! I've half a mind to leave you to get out of your troubles the best way you can. Do you know what's the matter with you? You are too impetuous. You are the kind of chap who strikes first and thinks afterwards. So far your experiments on me have kept me from telling you who I am and what I've come for. If you don't want help, say so. There are others who do, and I'll be jiggered if I wouldn't rather help them than you, now that I know what a fly-away Jack you are."

The spirit with which the visitor uttered these words made Parley somewhat ashamed of his behavior, and yet no one could really blame him, under the circumstances, for doing what he did.

"I'm sorry," he said, in a moment, "but you must remember, sir, that at Blue Haven there is no chair in manners, and the etiquette of a meeting of this sort is a closed book to me."

"That's all right," returned the ghost, kindly. "I don't blame you, on the whole. The trouble lies just where you say. In college people study geology and physiology and all the other 'ologies, save spectrology. Most college trustees disbelieve in ghosts, just as you do, and the consequence is you only touch upon the relations of man with the spirit world in your studies of psychology, and then only in a very incomplete fashion. Any gentleman knows how to behave to another gentleman, but when he comes into contact with a spook he's all at sea. If somebody would only write a ghost-etiquette book, or a 'Spectral Don't,' people who suffer from what you are pleased to call hallucinations would have an easier time of it. If I had been a book-agent, or a sneak-thief, or a lady selling patent egg-beaters which no home should be without, you would have received me with greater courtesy than you did."

"Still," said Parley, anxious to make out a good case for himself, "most of 'em wouldn't walk right into a fellow's room and scare him to death, you know."

"Nor would I," said the ghost. "You are still living, Parley, as you wouldn't have been if I'd scared you to death."

"Specious, but granted," returned Parley. "And now, Mr. Spook, let's exchange cards."

"I left my card-case at home," laughed the spirit. "But I'll tell you who I am and it will suffice. I'm old Billie Watkins, of the class of ninety-nine."

"There is no Watkins in ninety-nine," said Parley, suspiciously.

"Well, there _was_," retorted the spirit. "I ought to know, because I was old Billie myself. Valedictorian, too."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Parley. "Ninety-nine hasn't graduated yet!"

"Yes, it has," returned the ghost. "Seventeen ninety-nine, I mean."

Parley whistled. "Oh, I see! You're a relic of the last century!"

"That's it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it," said Billie. "We didn't mind being young, you know. When we had an eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars. And there wasn't any fighting over strokes, either; and we'd row anybody that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the only thing we thought about was getting in first."

"In any old way, I suppose?" sneered Parley.

"You bet!" cried the spirit, with enthusiasm. "We'd have put our eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they'd asked us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those days. A fellow didn't have to make a science out of his fun when I was at Blue Haven."

"And what good did it do you?" cried Parley.

"We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen States, that's what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat 'em at marbles on their own campus," returned the ghost.

Parley was beginning to be interested.

"I'd like to see the records of those times," he said.

"Records? Bosh!" said old Billie Watkins. "You don't for a moment believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those days!" the ghost added, with a sigh. "College wasn't filled with politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then."

"Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers," suggested Parley.

"We've become both since," said Watkins. "But we were boys then, and glad of it."

"Aren't we boys now?" queried Parley.

"Yes, you are," replied the ghost. "But you seem to be doing your best to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks like a grave man. Why, I don't believe you ever robbed the president's hen-coop in your life!"

"No," laughed Parley, "never. For two reasons: it's easier to get our chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn't got a hen-coop."

"Exactly. Even our college presidents aren't what they were. Never hooked a ham out of his smoke-house, either, I'll wager, and for the same reason-- Prex hasn't a smoke-house. All the smoking he does is in the line of cigars. But all this hasn't got anything to do with what I came here for. I came to help you, and I've seen enough of the way things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren't you?"

"Well, rather," said Parley. "You see, I've been playing football."

"Precisely," said Watkins. "And you've put so much time into learning to do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you've let everything else go."

"I suppose so," said Parley, sullenly.

"That's it," said old Billie Watkins. "Now that everything's science, there isn't time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he's got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as an athlete. Well, it's not your fault, maybe. It's the times, and I'm going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It's my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I've decided to help you out of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get Blue Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was so cocksure of winning it didn't seem to be necessary. I'm sorry now I didn't know it was all men's bluff and not boys' confidence. I might have helped the little men out. Still, that's over, and you are to be the gainer. _I'll pass your examinations for you._"

"What?" cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears.

"I'll pass your examinations for you," repeated the ghost. "It won't be hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class."

"But how?" asked Parley. "You couldn't pass yourself off for me, you know."

"Never said I could," returned Billie Watkins. "Never wanted to. I'd rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your questions."

"But what will the professors say?" demanded Parley.

"How will they know? They won't be able to see me any more than you can," said the ghost. "It's easy as shooting."

"Well, I don't know if it's square," said Parley. "In fact, I do know that it isn't; but if I get through this time I won't get into the same fix again."

"That's just the point," returned the ghost. "You're young, in spite of your trying not to be, and you've got into trouble. I'll help you out once, but after that you'll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I suppose you scientific watermen wouldn't demean yourselves by paddling a canoe, the way we used to."

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, Mr. Watkins," said Parley.

"Oh, botheration!" cried the ghost. "_Mister Watkins!_ Look here, Parley, we're both Blue Haven boys--somewhat far apart in time, it's true, but none the less Blue-Havenites. Don't 'mister' me. Call me Billie."

"All right, Billie," said Parley. "I'll go you, and after it's all over I'll be as much of a boy as I can."

"That's right," said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again.

What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of Watkins's ghost had proved a mistake--as, in fact, it was, although poor old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never volunteered his services.

Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings.

"That's what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might have known it was all a dream," he groaned.

"It wasn't," said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair, which had been repaired.

Parley jumped as if stung.

"You're a gay old valedictorian, you are!" he cried, glowering at the chair. "Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and burn it, will you? A pretty fix you've got me into."

"I'm sorry, Parley," began the ghost. "I--"

"Sorry be hanged!" cried Parley. "If you hadn't made me believe in you, I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it's a Waterloo all around."

"If you won't listen--" the ghost began again.

"I've listened enough!" roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. "And if there was any way in which I could get at you, I'd make you smart for your low-down trick!"

"To think," moaned the ghost, "that I should see the day when old Billie Watkins was accused of a low-down trick--and I tried to help him, too."

"Tried to help me?" sneered Parley. "How the deuce do you make that out? You didn't come within a mile of me, and I've not only flunked, but I've lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in you."

"I _was_ within a mile of you," retorted the ghost, indignantly. "I was right square in front of you."

"Then why the dickens didn't you answer the questions? I read 'em out so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it."

"I know you did, Parley," said the ghost, meekly. "And I'd have answered 'em if I could. But I couldn't."

"Couldn't?" cried Parley.

"Regularly just couldn't," said the ghost.

"A valedictorian couldn't answer a question on a Freshman's paper?" cried Parley, scornfully.

"No," said the ghost.

"Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?" sneered Parley.

"I do, of course," retorted the ghost, angrily. "A-b, ab, spells nothing. But that doesn't prove anything. I remember all I ever learned at Blue Haven, but I've made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just about where it used to leave off."

"What?" queried Parley, doubtfully. "What do you mean?"

"Why, it's plain enough, Jack! Can't you see?" said Watkins. "What would make a valedictorian in my day won't help a Freshman through his first year now. Times have changed."

"Oh, that's it--eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum--eh? That it?"

"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you are."

"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, though."

"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost. "All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying colors."

"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your Christmas gifts another time."

"I won't, Jack," said the spirit--"that is, I won't if you'll forgive me and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've forgiven me."

"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square."

And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere.

So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, and leave them both with my blessing.

An Unmailed Letter

An Unmailed Letter

BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF SOME SIGNIFICANCE

called the other night at the home of my friend Jack Chetwood, and found him, as usual, engaged in writing. Chetwood's name is sufficiently well known to all who read books and periodicals these days to spare me the necessity of adverting to his work, or of attempting to describe his personality. It is said that Chetwood writes too much. Indeed, I am one of those who have said so, and I have told _him_ so. His response has always been that I--and others who have ventured to remonstrate--did not understand. He had to keep at it, he said. Couldn't help himself. Didn't write for fun, but because he had to. Always did his best, anyhow, and what more can be asked of any man? Surely a defence of this nature takes the wind out of a critic's sails.

"Busy, Jack?" said I, as I entered his sanctum.

"Yes," said he. "Very."

"Very well," said I. "Don't let me disturb you. I only happened in, anyhow. Nothing in particular to say; but, Jacky, why don't you quit for a little? You're worn and pale and thin. What's the use of breaking down? Don't pose with me. You don't have to write all the time."

He smiled wanly at me.

"I--I'm only writing a letter this time," he said.

"Oh, in that case--" I began.

"You can't guess whom to?" he interrupted.

"Me," said I.

"No," he retorted. "Me."

"I don't understand," said I, somewhat perplexed.

"Myself," laughed Chetwood.

"You are writing a letter to--to--"

"Myself," said he. "Truly so. Odd, isn't it? Wait a few minutes, old man, and I'll read it to you. Light a cigar and sit down just a minute and I'll be through."

I lit one of Chetwood's cigars. They are excellent. I have heard one expert pronounce them "bully." They are, and of course while I smoked I was happy.

At the end of a half-hour's waiting, the silence broken only by the scratching of Chetwood's pen and by my own puffings upon the weed, he wheeled about in his chair.

"Well, that's finished," he said, and he glanced affectionately and, I thought, wistfully about his charming workshop.

"Good," said I. "You promised to read it to me."

"All right," said he. "Here goes."

And he kept his word. I reproduce the letter from memory. Like all copy-mongers, he began it with a title double underscored, and I reproduce it as I heard it:

"LETTER TO MYSELF

"ON CHRISTMAS GIVING: A HINT

"MY DEAR JOHN,--As the Christmas holidays approach it has
seemed to me to be somewhat in the line of my duty to write
to you not only to wish you all the good things of the
season, but to give you a little fatherly advice which may
stand you in good stead when the first of January comes
about. I have observed you and your ways with some
particularity for some time; in fact, since that very happy
day, nearly twenty years ago, when you entered upon the
duties of citizenship, with twenty-one years and a birthday
gift of $500 from your father to your credit. The twenty-one
years had come easily and had gone easily. All you had had
to do to acquire and to retain them was to breathe and to
keep your feet dry. The $500, which represented so much toil
on your father's part, came to you quite as easily. You saw
the check, and you realized the possibilities of the sum for
which it called, but I do not think you ever realized the
effort that produced that $500. I judge from the way you let
it filter through your fingers that you thought your
generous father picked the money up from a pile of gold
lying somewhere in the back yard of his home. I do not know
if you recall what it went for, but I do. Some of it went
for a half-dozen sporting pictures of some rarity that you
had long wished to hang on the walls of your den. More of it
went for rare first editions of books whose possession you
had envied others for no little time. A portion of it was
spent on sundry trinkets which should adorn your person,
such as studs, scarf-pins, a snake ring, with ruby eyes--a
disgusting-looking thing, by the way--to encircle your
little finger. There were also certain small things in the
line of bronzes, silver writing implements, a jug or two of
some value that you had cast your eyes upon, and which you
were quick to acquire. Do you remember, my dear Jack, how
delighted you were with all that you were able to buy with
that $500, until the bills came in and you found that the
consciousness of a $500 backing had led you into an
expenditure of a trifle over $900? You were painfully
surprised that day, Jacky, my boy, but, as I have watched
you since you let it go at that, you never learned anything
from those bills. Indeed, what you call your cheerful
philosophy, which led you to console yourself then with the
thought that the stuff you had bought on credit if sold at
auction would bring in enough to pay the deficit, has clung
to you ever since, and has served you ill--very ill--unless
I am wholly mistaken. You would strike any other man than
myself were he to venture to call you a second Mr. Micawber,
but Johnnie, dear, that is what you are--and you are even
worse than that, John. Let me assure you of the fact. _You
are something worse._ You are a modern Dick Turpin! Don't be
angry at my saying so. Merely understand that I am telling
you the truth, and for your own good, and I'll explain the
analogy. I cannot call a man a modern Dick Turpin without
explaining why I do so.

"Turpin was a highwayman, as you know. He mounted his horse
and went out upon the highway, and whatever he wanted he
took. He had no greater powers of resistance in the face of
temptation than others had in the face of him. You, John,
are much the same, even if you do not realize the fact. You
mount the steed called Credit, and you go out upon the
highways, and whatever you see that you happen to want you
take--don't you, Jack? It is true that, sooner or later,
you pay, but so did Turpin. Turpin paid with his life. You
will pay with yours, and that is why I write you, for the
constant anxiety to meet the obligations of your thefts--for
that is what they are, John; we cannot blink the fact--this
constant anxiety, I say, is sapping your strength,
undermining your constitution, destroying slowly but surely
your nerves, and sooner or later you will succumb to the
strain. Is it worth the price, my boy?

"I can imagine you asking what all this has to do with
Christmas and the season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to
Man. You think I am merely cavilling, but I am not. It has
this to do with it: It involves my Christmas present to you,
which is important to me and I trust will be so to you. I am
not going to give you a gold watch, or a complete edition of
Thackeray, or a set of golf clubs this year, and, being a
man, I cannot knit you a worsted vest as your sister
might--or as some other fellow's sister might. All I can
afford to give you this year is a hint, and I shall not wait
until Christmas morn to hand it over to you, because it
would then lack value. I send it to you now, when you need
it most, and, if you accept it, when the Christmas chimes
begin to sound their music on the frosty air you will thank
me for it perhaps more than you do now.

"Don't be a highwayman this year, John. Never mind what
Solomon said; think of what I say. Solomon was a wise man,
but he lived in a bygone age. Take thought of the morrow, my
boy. Don't consider the lilies of the field, but come down
to real business. Don't mount your prancing horse Credit
and hold up some poor jeweller for a silver water-pitcher
for your brother George when you know that on January 1st
the jeweller will probably ask you for a _quid pro quo_, and
for which _quid_ you will be compelled to compel him to wait
until April or May. And remember that, if your dear wife
could have her choice, she would infinitely prefer your
peace of mind to the sables which you propose to give her at
Christmas, bought on a credit which, however pleasing
to-day, is sure to become a very pressing annoyance
to-morrow.