My nervous dread redoubled as I neared Chicago, and it was as much as I could do, when the train reached Kalamazoo, to keep from turning back. And the event showed that I suffered with only too much reason, for, on my arrival at the home of the institution, I found it closed. The door was locked, the shades pulled down, the building the perfect picture of gloom. Miss Brockton, I was informed, was in a lunatic-asylum, and two hundred and eighty-three young girls, ranging from fourteen to twenty years of age, had been returned to their parents, the hair of every mother's daughter of them blanched white as the driven snow. No one knew, my informant said, exactly what had occurred at the academy, but the fact that was plain to all was that, some two weeks previous to my coming, the school had retired at the usual hour one night, in the very zenith of a happy prosperity, and gathered at breakfast the next morning to find itself wrecked, and bearing the outward semblance of a home for indigent old ladies. No one, from Miss Brockton herself to the youngest pupil, could give a coherent account of what had turned them all gray in a single night, and brought the furrows of age to cheeks both old and young, nor could any inducement be held out to any of the pupils to pass another night within those walls. They one and all fled madly back to their homes, and Miss Brockton's attempted explanation was so incredible that, protesting her sanity, she was nevertheless placed under restraint, pending a full investigation of the incident. She had, I was informed, asserted that some sixty ghosts of most terrible aspect had paraded through the house between the hours of midnight and 2 a. m., howling and shrieking and threatening the occupants in a most terrifying fashion. At their head marched a spectre brass-band of twenty-four pieces, grinding out with horrid contortions and grimaces the most awful discords imaginable – discords, indeed, Miss Brockton had said, alongside of which those of the most grossly material German street band in creation became melodies of soothing sweetness. The spectre rabble to the rear bore transparencies, upon which were painted such legends as, "Hail to Jones, our beloved Chief!" "Strike One, Strike All!" and, "Down with Hawkins, the Grinder of Ghosts!" This last caused my heart to sink still lower, for Hawkins was the name I had given the vision at Florence, and I now understood all. It was only too manifest that I was the cause of the undoing of these innocents.
My lie to Jones had brought this disaster upon the Brockton Academy. The dreadfulness of it appalled me, and I turned away, sick at heart, only to find myself face to face with the horrid Jones, grinning like the cad he had proved himself.
"Well, you have done it," I cried, trembling with rage. "I hope you are proud of yourself, venting your spite on an innocent woman and two hundred and eighty-three defenceless girls."
He laughed.
"It was a pretty successful haunt," he said; "and possibly, now that Mrs. Hawkins and your daughters – "
"Who?" I cried. "Mrs. What, and my which?"
"Your wife and children," he replied. "Now that the local chapter has attended to them, maybe you'll apologize to me for your boorish behavior at Florence."
"Those people were nothing to me," said I. "That was a boarding-school you have driven crazy. I was merely coming here to lecture – "
I immediately perceived my mistake. He could now easily discover my identity.
"Oho!" said he, with a broad, grim smile. "Then you lied to me at Florence, and you are not Hawkins, but the man they call the spook Boswell among us?"
"Yes, I am not Hawkins, and I am the other," I retorted. "Make the most of it."
"I thought that was rather a large family of girls for one man to have," rejoined Jones. "But see here – are you going to apologize or not?"
"I am not," I cried. "Never in this world nor in the next, you miserable handful of miasma!"
"Then, sir," said he, firmly, "I shall order a general strike for the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Spooks, and the strike will be on until you do apologize. Hereafter you will have to derive your inspiration from a contemplation of unskilled spooks, and, if I understand matters, you will find some difficulty in raising even these, for there is not one that I know of who doesn't belong to the union."
With that he vanished, and I sadly made my way back to my home. Once at my desk again, I turned my attention to the work I had promised you, and, to my chagrin, discovered that while I had in mind all the ingredients of a successful Christmas story, I could not write it, because Grand-Master-Spirit Jones had kept his word. One and all, my selected group of spooks went out on strike. They absolutely refused to pose unless I apologized to Jones, and by no persuasions, threats, or cajoling have I been able since to make them rise up before me, that I might present them to my readers with that degree of fidelity which I deem essential. My home, which was once a sort of spirit club, is now bare of even a semblance of a ghost worth writing up, and, conjure as I may, I cannot bring them back. The strike is on, and I am its victim. But one miserable little specimen have I discovered since my interview with Jones, and so unskilled is he in the science of spooking that I give you my word he could not make a baby shiver on a dark night with the temperature twenty below zero and the wind howling like a madman without; and as for making hair stand on end, I tried him on a bit of hirsute from the tail of the timidest fawn in the Central Park zoo, and the thing fell over as limp as a strand from the silken locks of the Lorelei.
That, my dear sir, is why I cannot give you the story I have promised. I hope you will understand that the fault is not my own, but is the result of the evil tendency of the times, when the protective principle has reached the ultimate of tyrannous absurdity.
While Jones is at the head of the Amalgamated Brotherhood my case is hopeless, for I shall never apologize, unless he promises to restore to poor Mrs. Brockton and her two hundred and eighty-three pupils their former youthful gayety and prosperity, which, I understand upon inquiry, he is unable to do, since the needed patent reversible spook, who will restore blanched hair to its natural color and return the bloom of youth to furrowed cheeks, has not yet been invented; and I, the only person in the world who might have invented it, am powerless, for while the boycott hangs over my head, as you will see for yourself, I am bereft of the raw material for the conducting of the necessary experiments.
A Glance Ahead
BEING A CHRISTMAS TALE OF A.D. 3568
Just how it came about, or how he came to get so far ahead, Dawson never knew, but the details are, after all, unimportant. It is what happened, and not how it happened, that concerns us. Suffice it to say that as he waked up that Christmas morning, Dawson became conscious of a great change in himself. He had gone to bed the night before worn in body and weary in spirit. Things had not gone particularly well with him through the year. Business had been unwontedly dull, and his efforts to augment his income by an occasional operation on the Street had brought about precisely the reverse of that for which he had hoped. This morning, however, all seemed right again. His troubles had in some way become mere memories of a remote past. So far from feeling bodily fatigue, which had been a pressingly insistent sensation of his waking moments of late, he experienced a startling sense of absolute freedom from all physical limitation whatsoever. The room in which he slept seemed also to have changed. The pictures on the walls were not only not the same pictures that had been there when he had gone to bed the night before, but appeared, even as he watched them, to change in color and in composition, to represent real action rather than a mere semblance thereof.
"Humph!" he muttered, as a lithograph copy of "The Angelus" before him went through a process of enlivenment wherein the bell actually did ring, the peasants bowing their heads as in duty bound, and then resuming their work again. "I feel like a bird, but I must be a trifle woozy. I never saw pictures behave that way before." Then he tried to stretch himself, and observed, with a feeling of mingled astonishment and alarm, that he had nothing to stretch with. He had no legs, no arms – no body at all. He was about to indulge in an ejaculation of dismay, but there was no time for it, for, even as he began, a terrifying sound, as of rushing horses, over his bed attracted his attention. Investigation showed that this was caused by an engraving of Gérôme's "Chariot Race," which hung on the wall above his pillow – an engraving which held the same peculiar attributes that had astonished him in the marvellous lithograph of "The Angelus" opposite. The thing itself was actually happening up there. The horses and chariots would appear in the perspective rushing madly along the course, and then, reaching the limits of the frame, would disappear, apparently into thin air, amid the shoutings and clamorings of the pictured populace. Three times it looked as if a mass of horseflesh, chariots, charioteers, and dust would be precipitated upon the bed, and if Dawson could have found his head there is no doubt whatever that he would have ducked it.
"I must get out of this," he cried. "But," he added, as his mind reverted to his disembodied condition, "how the deuce can I? What'll I get out with?"
The answer was instant. By the mere exercise of the impulse to be elsewhere the wish was gratified, and Dawson found himself opposite the bureau which stood at the far end of the room.
"Wonder how I look without a body?" he thought, as he ranged his faculties before the glass. But the mirror was of no assistance in the settlement of this problem, for, now that Dawson was mere consciousness only, the mirror gave back no evidence of his material existence.
"This is awful!" he moaned, as he turned and twisted his mind in a mad effort to imagine how he looked. "Where in thunder can I have left myself?"
As he spoke the door opened, and a man having the semblance of a valet entered.
"Good-morning, Mr. Dawson," said the valet – for that is what the intruder was – busying himself about the room. "I hope you find yourself well this morning?"
"I can't find myself at all this morning!" retorted Dawson. "What the devil does this mean? Where's my body?"
"Which one, sir?" the valet inquired, respectfully, pausing in his work.
"Which one?" echoed Dawson. "Wh – which – Oh, Lord! Excuse me, but how many bodies do I happen to have?" he added.
"Five – though a gentleman of your position, sir, ought to have at least ten, if I may make so bold as to speak, sir," said the valet. "Your golf body is pretty well used up, sir, you've played so many holes with it; and I really think you need a new one for evening wear, sir. The one you got from London is rather shabby, don't you think? It can't digest the simplest kind of a dinner, sir."
"The one I got from London, eh?" said Dawson. "I got a body in London, did I? And where's the one I got in Paris?" he demanded, sarcastically.
"You gave that to the coachman, sir," replied the valet. "It never fitted you, and, as you said yourself, it was rather gaudy, sir."
"Oh – I said that, did I? It was one of these loud, assertive, noisy bodies, eh?"
"Yes, sir, extremely so. None of your friends liked you in it, sir," said the valet. "Shall I fetch your lounging body, or will you wish to go to church this morning?" he continued.
"Bring 'em all in; bring every blessed bone of 'em," said Dawson. "I want to see how I look in 'em all; and bring me a morning paper."
"A what, sir?" asked the valet, apparently somewhat perplexed by the order.
"A morning paper, you idiot!" retorted Dawson, growing angry at the question. The man seemed to be so very stupid.
"I don't quite understand what you wish, sir," said the valet, apologetically.
"Oh, you don't, eh?" said Dawson, amazed as well as annoyed at the man's seeming lack of sense. "Well, I want to read the news – "
"Ah! Excuse me, Mr. Dawson," said the valet. "I did not understand. You want the
Daily Ticker
."
"Oh, do I?" ejaculated Dawson. "Well, if you know what I want better than I do, bring me what you think I want, and add to it a cup of coffee and a roll."
"I beg your pardon!" the valet returned.
"A cup of coffee and a roll!" roared Dawson. "Don't you know what a cup of coffee and a roll is or are? Just ask the cook, will you – "
"Ask the what, sir?" asked the valet, very respectfully.
"The cook! the cook! the cook!" screamed Dawson. His patience was exhausted by such manifest dulness.
"I – I'm sincerely anxious to please you, Mr. Dawson," said his man; "but really, sir, you speak so strangely this morning, I hardly know what to do. I – "
"Can't you understand that I'm hungry?" demanded Dawson.
"Oh!" said the valet. "Hungry, of course; yes, you should be at this time in the morning; but – er – your bodies have already been refreshed, sir; I have attended to all that as usual."
"Ah! You've attended to all that, eh? And I've breakfasted, have I?"
"Your bodies have all been fed, sir," said the valet.
"Never mind me, then," said Dawson. "Bring in those well-fed figures of mine, and let me look at 'em. Meanwhile, turn on the – er —
Daily Ticker
."
The valet bowed, walked across the room, and touched a button on a board which had escaped Dawson's vigilant eye – possibly because his vigilant eye was elsewhere – and, with a sigh of perplexity, left the room. The response to the button pressure was immediate. A clicking as of a stock-ticker began to make itself heard, and from one corner of the bureau a strip of paper tape covered with letters of one kind and another emerged. Dawson watched it unfold for a moment, and then, approaching it, took in the types that were printed upon it. In an instant he understood a portion of the situation at least, although he did not wholly comprehend it. The date was December 25, 3568. He had gone to bed on Christmas eve, 1898. What had become of the intervening years he knew not – but this was undoubtedly the year of grace 3568, if the ticker was to be believed – and tickers rarely lie, as most stock-speculators know. Instead of living in the nineteenth century, Dawson had in some wise leaped forward into the thirty-sixth.
"Great Scott!" he cried. "Where have I been all this time? I don't wonder my poor old body is gone!"
And then he started to peruse the news. The first item was a statement of governmental intent. It read something like a court circular.
"It is pleasant to announce on Christmas morning," he read, "that the business of the Administration has proven so successful during the year that all loyal citizens, on and after January 1, will be paid $10,000 a month instead of only $7600, as hitherto. The United States Railway Department, under the management of our distinguished Secretary of Railways, Mr. Hankinson Rawley, shows a profit of $750,000,000,000 for the year. Mr. Johnneymaker, Secretary of Groceries, estimates the profits of his department at $600,000,000,000, and the Secretary of War announces that the three highly successful series of battles between France and Germany held at the Madison Square Garden have netted the Treasury over $500,000 apiece – no doubt due to the fact that Emperor Bismarck XXXVII. and King Dreyfus XLVIII. led their troops in person. The showing of the Navy Department is quite as good. The good business sense of Secretary Smithers in securing the naval fights between Russia and the Anglo-Indians for American waters is fully established by the results. The twenty encounters between his Indo-Britannic Majesty's Arctic squadron and the Czar's Baltic fleet in Boston Harbor alone have cleared for our citizens $150,000,000 above the guarantees to the two belligerents; whereas the bombardment of St. Petersburg by the Anglo-Indians under our management, thanks to the efficient service of the Cook excursion-steamers direct to the scene of action, has brought us in several hundred millions more. It should be quite evident by this time that the Barnum & Bailey party have shown themselves worthy of the people's confidence."
Dawson forgot all about his possible bodily complications in reading this. Here was the United States gone into business, and instead of levying taxes was actually paying dividends. It was magnificent.
One might have thought that the unexpected announcement of the possession of an income of $120,000 a year would be sufficient to destroy any interest in whatever other news the
Ticker
might present; but with Dawson it only served to whet his curiosity, and he read on:
"The acquirement of the department stores by the government in 2433 has proven a decided success. Floorwalker-General Barker announces that the last of the bonds given in payment for the good-will of these institutions have matured and been paid off. This, too, out of the profits of four centuries. It is true that the laws requiring citizens to patronize these have helped much to bring about this desirable effect, and some credit for the present wholly satisfactory condition of affairs should be given to Senator Barca di Cinchona, of Peru, for having, in 2830, introduced the bill which for the time being covered him with execration. The profits for the coming year, on a conservative estimate, cannot be less than eighteen trillions of dollars – which, as our readers can see, will add much to the prosperity of the nation."
"Worse and worse!" cried Dawson. "Floorwalker-General – compulsory custom – eighteen trillions of dollars!" And then he read again:
"It will be with unexpected pleasure this Christmas morning, too, that our citizens will read the President's proclamation, in view of the unexampled prosperity of the past year, ordering a bonus of $15,000 gold to be delivered to every family in the land as a Christmas present from the Administration. This will relieve the vaults of the national Treasury of a store of coin that has been somewhat embarrassing to handle. The delivery-wagons will start on their rounds at six o'clock, and it is expected that by midday the money will have been wholly distributed. Residents of large cities are requested not to keep the carriers waiting at the door, since, as will be readily understood, the delivery of so much coin to so many millions of people is not an easy task. It is suggested that barrels of attested capacity be left on the walk, so that the coin may be placed into these without unnecessary delay. Those who still retain the old-fashioned coal-chutes can have the gold dumped into their cellars direct if they will simply have the covers to the coal-holes removed."
Dawson could hardly believe the announcement. Here was $15,000 coming to him this very morning. It was too good to be true, he thought; but the news was soon confirmed by the valet, who interrupted his reading by bursting breathlessly into the room.
"What on earth are we going to do, Mr. Dawson?" he cried. "The Christmas present has arrived. The cart is outside now."
"Do?" retorted Dawson. "Do? Why, get a shovel and shovel it in. What else?"
"That's easier said than done, sir," said the valet. "The gold-bin is chock-full already. You couldn't get a two-cent piece into the cellar, much less three thousand five-dollar gold pieces. They'd ought to have sent that money in certified checks."
Dawson experienced a sensation of mirth. The idea of quarrelling as to the form of a $15,000 gift struck him as being humorous.
"Isn't there any place but the gold-bin you can put it in?" he demanded. "How about the silver-bin, is that full?"
"I don't know what you mean by the silver-bin," replied the valet. "People don't use silver for money nowadays, sir."
"Oh, they don't, eh? And what do they do with it – pave streets?"
The valet smiled.
"You are having your little joke with me this morning, Mr. Dawson," he said, "or else you have forgotten that all we do with silver now is to make it into bricks and build houses with 'em."
"Well, I'll be hanged!" cried Dawson. "Really?"
"Certainly, sir," observed the valet. "You must remember how silver gradually cheapened and cheapened until finally it ruined the clay-brick industry?"
"Ah, yes," said Dawson. "I had temporarily forgotten. I do remember the tendency of silver to cheapen, but the ruin of the brick industry has escaped me. This house is – ah – built of silver bricks?"
"Of course it is, Mr. Dawson. As if you didn't know!" said the valet, with a deprecatory smirk.
"Ah – about how much coal – I mean gold – have we in the cellar?" Dawson asked.
"In eagles we have $230,000, sir, but I think there's half a million in fivers. I haven't counted up the $20 pieces for eight weeks, but I think we have a couple of tons left, sir."
"Then, James – Is your name James?"
"Yes, sir – James, or whatever else you please, sir," said the valet, accommodatingly.
"Then, James, if I have all that ready cash in the cellar, you can have the $15,000 that has just come. I – ah – I don't think I shall need it to-day," said Dawson, in a lordly fashion.
"Me, sir?" said James. "Thank you, sir, but really I have no place to put it. I don't know what to do with what I have already on hand."
"Then give it to the poor," said Dawson, desperately.
Again the valet smiled. He evidently thought his master very queer this morning.
"There ain't any poor any more, sir," he said.
"No poor?" cried Dawson.
"Of course not," said James. "Really. Mr. Dawson, you seem to have forgotten a great deal. Don't you remember how the forty-seventh amendment to the Constitution abolished poverty?"
"I – ah – I am afraid, James," said Dawson, gasping for breath, "that I've had a stroke of some kind during the night. All these things of which you speak seem – er – seem a little strange to me, James. There seems to be some lesion in my brain somewhere. Tell me about – er – how things are. Am I still in the United States?"
"Yes, sir, you are still in the United States."
"And the United States is bounded on the north by – "
"Sir, the United States has no northerly or southerly boundary. The Western Hemisphere is now the United States."
"And Europe?"
"Europe has not changed much since 1900, sir. Don't you remember how in the early years of the twentieth century the whole Eastern Hemisphere became European?"
"I remember that we took part in the division of China," said Dawson.
"Oh yes," said James, "quite so. But in 1920 don't you recall how we swapped off our share in China, together with the Dewey Islands, for Canada and all other British possessions on this side of the earth?"
"Dimly, James, only dimly," said Dawson, astonished, as well he might be, at the news, since he had never even imagined anything of the kind, although the Dewey Islands needed no explanation. "And we have ultimately acquired the whole hemisphere?"
"Yes, sir," replied James. "The South American republics came in naturally in 1940, and the Mexican War in 2363 ended, as it had to, in the conquest of Mexico."
"And, tell me, what are we doing with Patagonia?"
"One of the most flourishing States in the Union, Mr. Dawson. It was made the Immigrant State, sir. All persons immigrating to the United States, by an act of Congress passed in 2480, were compelled to go to Patagonia first, and forced to live there for a period of five years, studying American conditions, after which, provided they could pass an examination showing themselves equal to the duties of citizenship, they were permitted to go wherever else in the States they might choose."
"And suppose they couldn't pass?" Dawson asked.
"They had to stay in Patagonia until they could," said James. "It is known as the School of Instruction of the States. It is also our penal colony. Instead of prisons, we have a section of Patagonia set apart for the criminal element."
"And the negro?" asked Dawson. "How about him?"
"The negro, Mr. Dawson, if the histories say rightly, was an awful problem for a great many years. He had so many good points and so many bad that no one knew exactly what to do about him. Finally the sixty-third amendment was passed, ordering his deportation to Africa. It seemed like a hardship at first, but in 2863 he pulled himself together, and to-day has a continent of his own. Africa is his, and when nations are at war together they hire their troops from Africa. They make splendid soldiers, you know."
"What's become of Krüger and – er – Rhodes?" Dawson asked. "Turned black?"
James laughed. "Oh, Rhodes and Krüger! Why, as I remember it, they smashed each other. But that is ancient history, Mr. Dawson."
"Jove!" cried Dawson. "What changes!" And then an idea crossed his mind. "James," said he, "pack up my luggage. We'll go to London."
"Where?" asked James.
"To the British capital," returned Dawson.
"Very well, sir," said James. "I will buy return tickets for Calcutta at once, sir. Shall we go on the 1.10 or the 3.40? The 1.10 is an express, but the 3.40 has a buffet."
"Which is the quicker?" Dawson asked.
"The 3.40 goes through in thirty-five minutes, sir. The 1.10 does it in half an hour."
"Great Scott!" said Dawson. "I think, on the whole, James, I won't try it until to-morrow. Calcutta, eh!" he added to himself. "James," he continued, "when did Calcutta become the British capital?"
"In 2964, sir," said James.
"And London?" queried Dawson.
"I don't know much about those island towns, sir," said James. "It's said that London was once the British capital, but sensible people don't believe it much. Why, it hasn't more than twenty million inhabitants, mostly tailors."
"And how many citizens does a modern city have to have, to amount to anything, James?" asked Dawson, faintly.
"Well," said James scratching his head reflectively, "one hundred and sixty or two hundred millions, according to the last census."
"And New York reaches to where?" Dawson asked, in a tentative manner.
"Oh, not very far. It's only third, you know, in population. The last town annexed was Buffalo. The trouble with New York is that it has reached the limits of the State on every side. We'd make it bigger if we could, but Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Jersey won't give up an inch; and Canada is very jealous of her old boundaries."
"Wisely," said Dawson. And then he chose to be sarcastic. "Why don't they fill in the ocean with ashes and extend the city over the Atlantic, James? In an age of such marvellous growth so much waste space should be utilized," he said.
"Oh, it is," returned the valet. "You, of course, know that all the West Indies are now connected by means of a cinder-track with the mainland?"
"And is the bicycle-path to the Azores built yet?" demanded Dawson, dryly.
"No, Mr. Dawson," replied James. "That was given up in 2947, when the patent balloon tires were invented, by means of which wheelmen can scorch wherever they choose to through space, irrespective of roads."
Dawson gasped. "For Heaven's sake, James," he cried, "I need air! Bring up the bodies, and let me get aboard one of 'em and take a