Volume 98 — GHOSTLESS BOSTON.
Reading edition
[It is said that the Psychical Society could find no authentic stories of ghosts in Boston, U.S.A.]
Not a ghost in bumptious Boston! Do the souls of men whose books, So they tell us, outshine Dickens, rise superior to "spooks"? Do the phantoms, having read them, fly in terror and in pain At the cult of vivisection of La belle Américaine? Howells puffs up Dudley Warner, who declares his Howells fine. Do the spectres hate "log-rolling," and to haunt the place decline?
Are there no ghosts in New England? Really, this is something new. Where did famous Rip van Winkle see old Hudson's phantom crew? Are the Katskills now unhaunted, where those silent elders bowled, And Rip brought the keg of liquor, and the awful thunder rolled? Or do those immortal spectres very wisely count as nought All the tricks of spirit-rappers and sham readers of our thought?
Did the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, as we must perforce surmise, Leave ancestral ghosts behind them when they sailed 'neath alien skies? There is something in the notion, for it was a risky trip, And a spectre is a nuisance when he gibbers on board ship. So, no doubt, those sturdy people, when they crossed Atlantic foam, From an economic motive, left their phantoms all at home.
Or it may be disembodied spirits, when abroad they walk, Cannot stand the stucco culture and the egotistic talk; Warner may have "lovely manners," Howells swears he has, but then Ghosts have seen as good in days of stately dames and high-born men; While a curious nasal accent, just a soupcon of a twang, May cause spectres of refinement an involuntary pang.
So it seems the phantoms shun it, be the reason what it may, Not a single ghost of Boston owns to living there to-day. Possibly, if we but knew it, an American's too spry, And he takes his spirit with him when he condescends to die; Any way the "spooks" have vanished, and the spectres of old time Only live in cheap romances and the poet's idle rhyme.
Fortunate and Economical.
Druriolanus Operaticus didn't go over to Brussels the other day for nothing. What he had in his pocket at starting we are not aware, but it is certain that, while abroad, he collared a tenner, which is to last him through the ensuing season at Covent Garden. The new tenor's name is "Yboo." Beautiful name! "Why boo?" Ask Sir Pertinax Macsycophant, who tells us that "boo'ing" (not "for Balfour") is the only way to get on in life. The tenor, if successful, will be able to reply to "Y-boo" with the satisfactory answer—"Because I'm called before the Curtain."
THINGS ONE WOULD RATHER HAVE EXPRESSED DIFFERENTLY.
Jones (nervously conscious that he is interrupting a pleasant tête-à-tête). "A—I'm sorry to say I've been told to Take you in to Supper, Miss Belsize!"
