Ghosts I Have Met | Page 4

to catch bass
already boiled--my neighbors and myself lived on cracked ice,
ice-cream, and destructive cold drinks. I do not myself mind hot
weather in the daytime, but hot nights are killing. I can't sleep. I toss
about for hours, and then, for the sake of variety, I flop, but sleep
cometh not. My debts double, and my income seems to sizzle away
under the influence of a hot, sleepless night; and it was just here that a
certain awful thing saved me from the insanity which is a certain result
of parboiled insomnia.
It was about the 16th of July, which, as I remember reading in an extra
edition of the Evening Bun, got out to mention the fact, was the hottest
16th of July known in thirty-eight years. I had retired at half-past seven,
after dining lightly upon a cold salmon and a gallon of iced tea--not
because I was tired, but because I wanted to get down to first principles
at once, and remove my clothing, and sort of spread myself over all the
territory I could, which is a thing you can't do in a library, or even in a
white-and-gold parlor. If man were constructed like a machine, as he
really ought to be, to be strictly comfortable--a machine that could be
taken apart like an eight-day clock--I should have taken myself apart,
putting one section of myself on the roof, another part in the spare
room, hanging a third on the clothes-line in the yard, and so on, leaving
my head in the ice-box; but unfortunately we have to keep ourselves
together in this life, hence I did the only thing one can do, and retired,
and incidentally spread myself over some freshly baked bedclothing.
There was some relief from the heat, but not much. I had been roasting,
and while my sensations were somewhat like those which I imagine
come to a planked shad when he first finds himself spread out over the
plank, there was a mitigation. My temperature fell off from 167 to

about 163, which is not quite enough to make a man absolutely content.
Suddenly, however, I began to shiver. There was no breeze, but I began
to shiver.
"It is getting cooler," I thought, as the chill came on, and I rose and
looked at the thermometer. It still registered the highest possible point,
and the mercury was rebelliously trying to break through the top of the
glass tube and take a stroll on the roof.
"That's queer," I said to myself. "It's as hot as ever, and yet I'm
shivering. I wonder if my goose is cooked? I've certainly got a chill."
I jumped back into bed and pulled the sheet up over me; but still I
shivered. Then I pulled the blanket up, but the chill continued. I
couldn't seem to get warm again. Then came the counterpane, and
finally I had to put on my bath-robe--a fuzzy woollen affair, which in
midwinter I had sometimes found too warm for comfort. Even then I
was not sufficiently bundled up, so I called for an extra blanket, two
afghans, and the hot-water bag.
Everybody in the house thought I had gone mad, and I wondered
myself if perhaps I hadn't, when all of a sudden I perceived, off in the
corner, the Awful Thing, and perceiving it, I knew all.
I was being haunted, and the physical repugnance of which I have
spoken was on. The cold shiver, the invariable accompaniment of the
ghostly visitant, had come, and I assure you I never was so glad of
anything in my life. It has always been said of me by my critics that I
am raw; I was afraid that after that night they would say I was half
baked, and I would far rather be the one than the other; and it was the
Awful Thing that saved me. Realizing this, I spoke to it gratefully.
"You are a heaven-born gift on a night like this," said I, rising up and
walking to its side.
"I am glad to be of service to you," the Awful Thing replied, smiling at
me so yellowly that I almost wished the author of the _Blue-Button of
Cowardice_ could have seen it.

"It's very good of you," I put in.
"Not at all," replied the Thing; "you are the only man I know who
doesn't think it necessary to prevaricate about ghosts every time he gets
an order for a Christmas story. There have been more lies told about us
than about any other class of things in existence, and we are getting a
trifle tired of it. We may have lost our corporeal existence, but some of
our sensitiveness still remains."
"Well," said I, rising and lighting the gas-logs--for I was on