‘Very good,’ he answered. ‘It was like this. To begin, I must tell you that when I was a boy preparing for college I had for a chum a brilliant fun-loving fellow named Hawley Hicks, concerning whose future various prophecies had been made. His mother often asserted that he would be a great poet; his father thought he was born to be a great general; our head-master at the Scarberry Institute for Young Gentlemen prophesied the gallows. They were all wrong; though, for myself, I think that if he had lived long enough almost any one of the prophecies might have come true. The trouble was that Hawley died at the age of twenty-three. Fifteen years elapsed. I was graduated with high honors at Brazenose, lived a life of elegant leisure, and at the age of thirty-seven broke down in health. That was about a year ago. My uncle, whose heir and constant companion I was, gave me a liberal allowance, and sent me off to travel. I came to America, landed in New York early in September, and set about winning back the color which had departed from my cheeks by an assiduous devotion to such pleasures as New York affords. Two days after my arrival, I set out for an airing at Coney Island, leaving my hotel at four in the afternoon. On my way down Broadway I was suddenly startled at hearing my name spoken from behind me, and appalled, on turning, to see standing with outstretched hands no less a person than my defunct chum, Hawley Hicks.’
‘Impossible,’ said I.
‘Exactly my remark,’ returned Number 5010. ‘To which I added, “Hawley Hicks, it can’t be you”!’
‘“But it is me,” he replied.
‘And then I was convinced, for Hawley never was good on his grammar. I looked at him a minute, and then I said, “But, Hawley, I thought you were dead.”
‘“I am,” he answered. “But why should a little thing like that stand between friends?”
‘“It shouldn’t, Hawley,” I answered, meekly; “but it’s condemnedly unusual, you know, for a man to associate even with his best friends fifteen years after they’ve died and been buried.”
‘“Do you mean to say, Austin, that just because I was weak enough once to succumb to a bad cold, you, the dearest friend of my youth, the closest companion of my school-days, the partner of my childish joys, intend to go back on me here in a strange city?”
‘“Hawley,” I answered, huskily, “not a bit of it. My letter of credit, my room at the hotel, my dress suit, even my ticket to Coney Island, are at your disposal; but I think the partner of your childish joys ought first to be let in on the ground-floor of this enterprise, and informed how the deuce you manage to turn up in New York fifteen years subsequent to your obsequies. Is New York the hereafter for boys of your kind, or is this some freak of my imagination?”’
‘That was an eminently proper question,’ I put in, just to show that while the story I was hearing terrified me, I was not altogether speechless.
‘It was, indeed,’ said 5010; ‘and Hawley recognized it as such, for he replied at once.
‘“Neither,” said he. “Your imagination is all right, and New York is neither heaven nor the other place. The fact is, I’m spooking, and I can tell you, Austin, it’s just about the finest kind of work there is. If you could manage to shuffle off your mortal coil and get in with a lot of ghosts, the way I have, you’d be playing in great luck.”
‘“Thanks for the hint, Hawley,” I said, with a grateful smile; “but, to tell you the truth, I do not find that life is entirely bad. I get my three meals a day, keep my pocket full of coin, and sleep eight hours every night on a couch that couldn’t be more desirable if it were studded with jewels and had mineral springs.”
‘“That’s your mortal ignorance, Austin,” he retorted. “I lived long enough to appreciate the necessity of being ignorant, but your style of existence is really not to be mentioned in the same cycle with mine. You talk about three meals a day, as if that were an ideal; you forget that with the eating your labor is just begun; those meals have to be digested, every one of ’em, and if you could only understand it, it would appall you to see what a fearful wear and tear that act of digestion is. In my life you are feasting all the time, but with no need for digestion. You speak of money in your pockets; well, I have none, yet am I the richer of the two. I don’t need money. The world is mine. If I chose to I could pour the contents of that jeweller’s window into your lap in five seconds, but cui bono? The gems delight my eye quite as well where they are; and as for travel, Austin, of which you have always been fond, the spectral method beats all. Just watch me!”
‘I watched him as well as I could for a minute,’ said 5010; ‘and then he disappeared. In another minute he was before me again.
‘“Well,” I said, “I suppose you’ve been around the block in that time, eh?”
‘He roared with laughter. “Around the block?” he ejaculated. “I have done the Continent of Europe, taken a run through China, haunted the Emperor of Japan, and sailed around the Horn since I left you a minute ago.”
‘He was a truthful boy in spite of his peculiarities, Hawley was,’ said Surrennes, quietly, ‘so I had to believe what he said. He abhorred lies.’
‘That was pretty fast travelling, though,’ said I. ‘He’d make a fine messenger-boy.’
‘That’s so. I wish I’d suggested it to him,’ smiled my host. ‘But I can tell you, sir, I was astonished. “Hawley,” I said, “you always were a fast youth, but I never thought you would develop into this. I wonder you’re not out of breath after such a journey.”
‘“Another point, my dear Austin, in favor of my mode of existence. We spooks have no breath to begin with. Consequently, to get out of it is no deprivation. But, I say,” he added, “whither are you bound?”
‘“To Coney Island to see the sights,” I replied. “Won’t you join me?”
‘“Not I,” he replied. “Coney Island is tame. When I first joined the spectre band, it seemed to me that nothing could delight me more than an eternal round of gayety like that; but, Austin, I have changed. I have developed a good deal since you and I were parted at the grave.”
‘“I should say you had,” I answered. “I doubt if many of your old friends would know you.”
‘“You seem to have had difficulty in so doing yourself, Austin,” he replied, regretfully; “but see here, old chap, give up Coney Island, and spend the evening with me at the club. You’ll have a good time, I can assure you.”
‘“The club?” I said. “You don’t mean to say you visions have a club?”
‘“I do indeed; the Ghost Club is the most flourishing association of choice spirits in the world. We have rooms in every city in creation; and the finest part of it is there are no dues to be paid. The membership list holds some of the finest names in history – Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Napoleon Bonaparte, Caesar, George Washington, Mozart, Frederick the Great, Marc Antony – Cassius was black-balled on Caesar’s account – Galileo, Confucius.”
‘“You admit the Chinese, eh?” I queried.
‘“Not always,” he replied. “But Con was such a good fellow they hadn’t the heart to keep him out; but you see, Austin, what a lot of fine fellows there are in it.”
‘“Yes, it’s a magnificent list, and I should say they made a pretty interesting set of fellows to hear talk,” I put in.
‘“Well, rather,” Hawley replied. “I wish you could have heard a debate between Shakespeare and Caesar on the resolution, ‘The Pen is mightier than the Sword;’ it was immense.”
‘“I should think it might have been,” I said. “Which won?”
‘“The sword party. They were the best fighters; though on the merits of the argument Shakespeare was ’way ahead.”
‘“If I thought I’d stand a chance of seeing spooks like that, I think I’d give up Coney Island and go with you,” I said.