The Water Ghost and Others

Water Ghost and Others

Project Gutenberg's The Water Ghost and Others, by John Kendrick Bangs #9 in our series by John Kendrick Bangs
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Title: The Water Ghost and Others
Author: John Kendrick Bangs
Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8377] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 4, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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[Illustration]
John Kendrick Bangs
THE WATER GHOST AND OTHERS

To Francis Sedgwick Bangs
CONTENTS
THE WATER GHOST OF HARROWBY HALL
THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP
THE SPECK ON THE LENS
A MIDNIGHT VISITOR
A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA
THE GHOST CLUB
A PSYCHICAL PRANK
THE LITERARY REMAINS OF THOMAS BRAGDON

ILLUSTRATIONS
"'WELCOME TO BANGLETOP'" A DEPARTING COOK THE BARON'S BREAKFAST WAS NOT PAY-DAY TERWILLIGER TO THE RESCUE "COOK!" HE WHISPERED THE PRESENCE HAD ASSUMED SHAPE "'NO TALKERS,' RETORTED THE GHOST" THEY SHOOK HANDS AND PARTED THE H'EARL, OF MUGLEY "'TO ARIADNE, OF COURSE'" "A DUKE IS A DUKE THE WORLD OVER" BACK TO THE SPIRIT VALE "MARTYRS' NIGHT" "DO YOU HEAR THAT BOLT SLIDE?" THE VISITOR ARRIVES "I LOOKED UPON MY REFLECTION IN THE GLASS" THE RED TIE "NOT A CARD FELL" "'GRAB HOLD OF ME, BOYS'" "I MUST HAVE FAINTED" THE MIND-READING FEATS ON THE CLUB'S BUTLER "5010" "PEGGING SHOES LIKE A GENTLEMAN" 5010 BECOMES EXCITED "NO LESS A PERSON THAN HAWLEY HICKS" "'JUST WATCH ME'" NOAH AND DAVY CROCKETT SOLOMON AND DOCTOR JOHNSON MOZART TRIES HIS HAND AT THE BANJO WAITING FOR THE CRITICS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE AND THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON THE GIFT OF THE SPOONS "'LET ME SHAAK DTHOT HAND'" "HE WAS IN AN UNUSUALLY EXUBERANT MOOD" ON A SPIRIT SHIP "MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE REALITY" GIUSEPPE ZOCCO "BUT FINALLY I OPENED THE BOX" "GAZING INTO THE FIRE WAS TOM BRAGDON" "'YOU GOIN' TO KEEP A DIARY?'"

THE WATER GHOST OF HARROWBY HALL
The trouble with Harrowby Hall was that it was haunted, and, what was worse, the ghost did not content itself with merely appearing at the bedside of the afflicted person who saw it, but persisted in remaining there for one mortal hour before it would disappear.
It never appeared except on Christmas Eve, and then as the clock was striking twelve, in which respect alone was it lacking in that originality which in these days is a sine qua non of success in spectral life. The owners of Harrowby Hall had done their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy lady who rose up out of the best bedroom floor at midnight, but without avail. They had tried stopping the clock, so that the ghost would not know when it was midnight; but she made her appearance just the same, with that fearful miasmatic personality of hers, and there she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly saturated.
Then the owners of Harrowby Hall calked up every crack in the floor with the very best quality of hemp, and over this was placed layers of tar and canvas; the walls were made water-proof, and the doors and windows likewise, the proprietors having conceived the notion that the unexorcised lady would find it difficult to leak into the room after these precautions had been taken; but even this did not suffice. The following Christmas Eve she appeared as promptly as before, and frightened the occupant of the room quite out of his senses by sitting down alongside of him and gazing with her cavernous blue eyes into his; and he noticed, too, that in her long, aqueously bony fingers bits of dripping sea-weed were entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends she drew across his forehead until he became like one insane. And then he swooned away, and was found unconscious in his bed the next morning by his host, simply saturated with sea-water and fright, from the combined effects of which he never recovered, dying four years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration at the age of seventy-eight.
The next year the master