Part 2

"Be patient," he replied, "until you have heard the further results to which they will lead. I have not yet told you the half, and it may be that when you have heard the rest you will prefer to have no part in these Mysteries. The realm to which they will lead you has an immense population of ghosts; it is vastly more populous than our planet; and notwithstanding that my exercises have brought me abundant knowledge of them and their doings, I have not been able to classify more than a small portion of the inhabitants. The characters created by imaginative genius are only one among the orders of ghosts to whom you will presently be introduced. You will be haunted by _Ideas_ in every variety, all of them living organisms of high complexity, and all more or less ignorant of whence they come or whose they are. Possibly you will encounter your own ideas among them; and I must warn you against claiming to be the author of any of them, even the most original. There is nothing that offends them more deeply. They have their own notions as to their origin, which they conceive to lie in something infinitely superior to the brain of a being like yourself. By many of them their reputed authors are treated with contempt; some deny the existence of these 'authors' in any capacity whatsoever; others regard them as mere phrases, metaphors, or abstractions. A notable instance is that of your friend Professor Gunn, who wrote the famous treatise to prove the non-existence of God. The potent ideas projected in the course of that work had long enjoyed an independent being of their own in the spiritual world; and it may interest you--and Professor Gunn also, if you will be kind enough to tell him what I am now saying--to learn that these ideas of his have formed themselves into a congregation or society whose principal tenet is that there is no such being as Professor Gunn. They regard him alternatively as a sun-myth or an exploded fiction."

"How absurd!" I cried.

"In your present darkness," he answered, "the exclamation is to be excused. But I assure you that after passing one night in this house you will find that nothing in heaven or earth is less absurd than the statement you have just heard."

"As to _your own_ Ideas," he continued, "know that their relation to yourself is, in their eyes, widely different from what you conceive it to be. Between yourself and them there is the utmost divergence of view on this matter. Under no circumstances whatsoever will they consent to regard themselves as your _property_, and no claim of that kind, nor even the semblance of a claim, must ever be suffered to appear in your dealings with these ghosts. Remember that your common-sense is their metaphysic, and their metaphysic your common-sense; what you dream of, they see; what you see, they dream of; and the consequence is that many truths, which appear to you as the least certain of your conclusions, are used by them as the familiar axioms of thought. On the other hand, what are axioms to you are often problems to them. Your _cogito ergo sum_, for example, will not go down in the spiritual world. For just as you, on your side of the theory of knowledge, are busy in trying to account for your Ideas, so they, on theirs, have much ado in their efforts to account for _you_; all of them find you the most illusive of beings, while some, as I have already hinted, deny your existence altogether, or treat you as a highly questionable hypothesis. With several of your leading Ideas I hope to make you personally acquainted this very night. To convince them of your identity will be no easy matter, and the most vigilant circumspection will be necessary on your part. I counsel an attitude of uttermost modesty; anything else is certain to give them the impression that you are an impostor. Betray, then, not the least surprise on finding yourself treated by your own Ideas as a being of little importance to their concerns. Above all, you must not expect them to take more than a passing interest in _your brain_. Your best course is to avoid all reference to that topic. 'The brain' is seldom, if ever, mentioned in the best circles of the spiritual world--to which circles, I assume, your leading Ideas belong. You must never forget that in the realm of Ideas class distinctions are rigidly observed; there is an aristocracy and a proletariat, with all the intermediate grades; and many topics which may be safely mentioned among the commons are an offence when introduced to the nobility. 'The brain' is one of these. Its use, among the ghosts, is confined exclusively to the working class; and you will commit a breach of good manners by flaunting its functions in the presence of august society. Were you, for example, in the course of some conversation with a noble Principle, to offer him the use of your own brain, or to suggest that he was in need of such an implement, or in the habit of using it, you would commit an indiscretion of the first magnitude; and it is certain the offended spirit would strike you off his visiting list and decline to haunt you any more. Pardon my insistence on this point. Knowing, as I do, how apt you are to talk about your brain, I am naturally apprehensive lest, in an unguarded moment, you should thrust that organ under the nose of some Great Idea. Believe me, it would be a fatal mistake. Remember, I implore you, what I have already said: that, in the spiritual world, the brain-habit is strictly confined to the working class."[2]

[Footnote 2: "Ni pour le jugement, ni pour le raisonnement, ni pour aucune autre faculte de la pensee proprement dite nous n'avons la moindre raison de supposer qu'elle soit attachee a tels ou tels processus cerebraux determines.... Les phenomenes cerebraux sont en effet a la vie mentale ce que les gestes du chef d'orchestre sont a la symphonie: ils en dessinent les articulations motrices, ils ne font pas autre chose. On ne trouverait done rien des operations de l'esprit proprement dit a l'interieur du cerveau." (Professor Henri Bergson: Presidential Address to the Society for Psychical Research, 1913.)]

"Before you can persuade me of all this," I said, "you will have to turn my intelligence clean inside out."

"That is precisely what I intend doing, and the first step shall be taken this very instant. Begin the exercises by repeating the Formula of Initiation. It runs as follows:

'_Till another speaks to me I am nothing._'"

"Why, Panhandle," I said laughing, "that is the very formula they taught me when I first entered a Public School. And they enforced it with kicks."

"The Universe enforces it in the same manner. But let us keep to the matter in hand. Repeat the formula at once."

"Wait," I said. "The situation is growing ominous, and I will not embark upon this enterprise till I know more of what it will lead to."

"Take your own time," said Panhandle. "The rules of my system forbid me to hurry the neophyte. If what I have told you already is not enough, you shall hear more. Among the ghosts who haunt this house are beings far mightier than any I have so far described. For a long time their identification baffled me, until one night I overheard them in high debate, and found they were occupied in an attempt to account for their own existence in the scheme of things. Then I knew who they were."

"These," I said, catching him up, "must assuredly be the ghosts of the great philosophies, or systems of thought, which in their earthly state accounted for the existence of everything else, but left the problem of their own existence untouched."

"A most happy anticipation, and one that augurs well for your future success as an entertainer of ghosts. Have we not heard on high authority that no philosophy is complete until it has explained its own presence in the universe? Having neglected this at the first stage of their existence, the systems exercise their wits at the second in attempts to make good the oversight."

"Do many of them succeed?" I asked.

"Most of them fail; and for that reason their ghosts linger for ages in the neighbourhood of houses which, like my own, are hospitable to their presence. For it is a rule of the realm to which they now belong that so soon as any system succeeds in explaining its own origin it vanishes and passes on to a still higher state of existence."

"Panhandle," I said, "you have identified these ghosts beyond the possibility of cavil. A more conclusive proof could not be given."

"Beware, then, how you proceed!" said he. "It is possible that you will be haunted to-night not only by your Ideas in their severalty, but by your whole system of thought organised as one Synthetic Ghost. It will certainly question you on the subject of its creator, that being, as I have said, the central and absorbing interest of all these spirits. But again let me implore you to be on your guard against claiming to be its author. To inform such a ghost that it originates in a human intelligence, and that intelligence your own, would be treated as an outbreak of impudence deserving the highest resentment, and it is more than likely that the indignant phantom would put a lasting blight on your intellect or punish your presumption in ways yet more fearful to contemplate."

The flow of Panhandle's speech had now become extremely rapid, and my intelligence was beginning to lag in the rear. "Give me a breathing-space," I cried; "I need an interval for silent meditation." Then, in a voice so low that he could not hear me, I repeated to myself the Formula of Initiation and, after musing for a few minutes, begged him to proceed. "A light is breaking," I said, "and your warnings are taking hold."

"In this connection," he resumed, "I could relate many things that would surprise you. Just as the personalities created by genius are apt to repudiate their creators, so the great philosophies when translated to the higher state are apt to disown all connection with the persons to whom their origin is humanly attributed. The philosophy of Spencer, for example, believes its author to be absolutely inscrutable; that of von Hartmann suspects a Professor, but declares him to have been unconscious of what he was doing. Pessimism, again, ascribes its beginning to a desire on the part of the Primal Power to give away the secret of its conspiracies against its own subjects; the doctrine that mind is mechanism believes itself the outcome of a non-mechanical principle, and has become in consequence the most superstitious of all the ghosts; and a group of materialistic systems have concluded, after long debate, that all philosophies originate from Ink and a Tendency in the Ink to get itself transferred to Paper."

"It is evident," I interposed, "that even in their higher existence the systems are by no means free from illusions."

"Be cautious how you judge them," said Panhandle, "for it may be that in accounting for their origin they are less astray than yourself. None the less, you are right in declaring them defective. _Fallacies_ perpetrated in a system at the first stage of its existence become _diseases_ when translated to the second, and some of the ghosts in consequence live the life of invalids. The ghost of Evolution, for example, will appear before you in a deplorable condition. This ghost has recently learnt that it is suffering from an Undistributed Middle, a disease unamenable to treatment, being proof even against the Method of Eloquence, which as you know is a potent specific for most logical defects. You may easily identify the spirit by remembering what I have told you. If you encounter an apparition walking about with hands pressed hard on its Middle, and groaning heavily, know that the spectre of Evolution is before you."

"Panhandle," I said, "your revelations have awakened my uttermost curiosity, and every nerve in my body is tense with eagerness to encounter an apparition. Heaven grant that the ghost of my own philosophy may appear! And yet, in a sense, I am disappointed. You promised that you would furnish me with material for my next book. But the public has no interest in the phantoms you have described, and will not believe in their existence."

"That remains to be seen," he answered. "Meanwhile, I give you my solemn pledge that you shall see a ghost before the night is out."

He said this in a tone so ominous that I could not refrain from starting. What could he mean? A sudden thought flashed upon me, and I cried aloud:

"My dear friend, you fill me with alarm, and I am on the point of giving way! I begin to suspect that I shall never see the ghosts until I have passed to another world. I believe that I am doomed to die in this house to-night! It was indicated in the tone of your voice."

With a quick motion Panhandle swung round in his chair and looked me full in the face.

"How do you know," he said, "that you are not dead now, and already passed to the existence of which you speak?"

The effort to answer his question revived my courage. But in all my life I have never found a problem half so difficult. To prove that I was not dead already and become a ghost! Forty or fifty times did I lay down a new set of premises, only to be reminded by Panhandle that I begged the question in every one. My ingenuity was taxed to breaking point, my voice was exhausted, the sweat was pouring from my brows, when, once again, from the upper airs where the sky-sign was swinging, I heard the same fluttering and rustling which had arrested my attention at a former crisis. It was growing dark, and the arc-lamps which outlined the letters were all aglow. I watched the transformation, and suddenly saw, flashed out for a moment into the gathering darkness, these words:

"_Give it up._"

III

PANHANDLE'S REMARKABLE ADVENTURE. THE GHOST APPEARS

Dinner was now served. We dined alone, and, in the intervals when the footman was out of the room, I seized the opportunity to probe further into the mystery of the haunted house.

"The ghosts," I said, "have not appeared. Neither in my own apartment, nor in the corridors, nor in the various empty rooms which I have visited, have I seen or heard anything to suggest that the house is haunted."

"May I ask," said my companion, "for the grounds of your statement that so far the ghost has failed to appear?"

"Save for yourself," I answered, "the only person I have seen since entering is the footman."

"And how do you know that the footman is not a ghost?"

"Why," said I, "he carried my bag upstairs, and pocketed the balance of half a crown I gave him to pay for a telegram."

"I never heard a feebler argument," he replied. "It is obvious that you resemble the majority of mankind, who, if they were to see a thousand ghosts every day, would never recognise one of them for what it was. Now, as to the footman----"

But at that moment the individual in question entered the room bringing coffee and cigars. When he had gone Panhandle resumed:

"We were speaking of the footman. But perhaps it would be wiser to deal with the matter in general terms. I have already said enough to satisfy any reasonable judge of evidence that this is a genuinely haunted house. I have now to add that a doubt may be raised as to _who is the haunter and who the haunted_."

I sat silent, staring at Panhandle with wide eyes of astonishment, for I had no universe of discourse to which I could relate the strange things I was hearing. He went on:

"From what I have told you already you have no doubt drawn the inference that the ghosts are haunting _me_. But the ghosts themselves are not of that mind. In their opinion it is I who am haunting _them_. My first discovery of this, which is destined to revolutionise the whole theory of ghosts, was made under circumstances which I will now relate.

* * * * *

"Many years ago I was seated in the library late one night engaged in writing a report of certain mysterious phenomena which had been observed in this house. I had just completed a copy of the signed evidence of the cook, the gardener, and the housemaid, all of whom had left that day without notice in consequence of something they alleged they had seen. Suddenly I thought I heard a whispered voice from the further side of the room, and looking up I saw seated at a table two beings of human semblance, who were gazing intently in my direction.

"'Do you not see something on yonder chair?' asked one.

"'Yes,' answered the other, 'I certainly see something. Probably a gleam of light. Observe, the curtains are not quite closed, and this is about the time when they turn on the searchlight at the barracks. Draw the curtains close and it will instantly disappear.'

"The speaker went to the window, leaving the other still staring fearfully in my direction. Having closed the curtains, the man returned to his place.

"'By heaven!' he cried, 'the thing is still there!' And I could see the pallor creeping over his face.

"A moment later I heard one of them say, 'It has gone. Well, whatever it was, I have had a shock. I am trembling all over.' And with that he rang the bell.

"Presently a footman appeared with a bottle of spirits and a siphon. Having deposited the tray, he chanced to look towards the place where I was sitting. A piercing cry followed, and the man ran screaming out of the room. The two men also started to their feet and began shouting something I could not hear. I suppose they were calling to some person in the house, for the shouts were quickly followed by the entry of a young fellow of athletic build and truculent countenance.

"'Show me your damned ghost,' he said, 'and I'll soon settle him.'

"'He's over there--in that seat,' cried one. 'For heaven's sake, go up to him, Reginald, and see what he's made of.'

"The truculent youth darted forward, but suddenly came to a dead stop, with a face as white as a sheet. Then with a trembling hand he whipped a revolver out of his pocket, and at five paces fired all six barrels point-blank at my body. At each shot I was aware of a painful feeling in the penumbra of my consciousness, like the sudden awakening of a buried sorrow."

At this point Panhandle paused to relight his cigar, and I took the opportunity to make a remark.

"Count it no grievance," I said, "if one who shoots at psychologists is himself occasionally shot at. I surmise that the truculent youth was the ghost of a promising psychologist, foully murdered by your nefarious gun."

"Name it a righteous execution, and I shall agree," he answered.

"Or it may be," I added, "that many of the sudden and inexplicable pains that break out in our minds and in our bodies are caused by ghosts, or whatever you call them, shooting at us, or stabbing us, to test our reality."

Panhandle turned a keen glance at my face to see if I was serious, and, being satisfied that I was, continued:

"I have heard more unlikely explanations of such pains, and your theory is precisely one of those which medical science will have to investigate when these discoveries of mine are made public. But let me resume the narrative.

"At the sound of the firing the whole household seemed to be aroused. And what a household it was! In a few moments the room was crowded with beings of reverend countenance and stately carriage. Looking round with slow, grave eyes, they conversed in whispers. 'Science must investigate this,' one of them said. 'We will arrange that a committee of the Society shall make a thorough examination of the house and test the phenomena. Don't forget to engage two shorthand writers and an expert in spirit photography. And let the room be sealed up till the experts arrive.'

"During the whole of these proceedings I remained absolutely still, my acquaintance with the other world having taught me the wisdom of reticence. At this point, however, I resolved to attempt communication with my visitors, and, looking round for a person to whom I might address myself, I observed a bright little fellow of twelve years old staring about him in an absent-minded way, quite inattentive to all that was going on. As I walked over to where he was standing he saw me plainly, and showed not the least surprise on being addressed.

"'What is your name, my little man?' I asked.

"'Billy Burst,' said he.

"'And what are you thinking about while all those people are making such a fuss?'

"'_I am wondering how people weigh the planets_,' he answered.

"'Come along with me,' said I, 'and I will show you just what you want to know.'

"Then taking him by the hand I led him across the room to the seat I had just left; but though the sages who were present saw him cross the room, not one of them saw me, who was leading him by the hand.

"I took out a sheet of paper and began to draw figures and work formulae, the boy meanwhile standing by the side of my chair and saying not a word. When I had finished I said:

"'Do you understand?'

"'Perfectly,' he answered; 'I see it at last. Thank you ever so much.'

"'Now Billy,' I said, 'there is something you can do for _me_. I want you to stand on that chair and tell the people that the person they are making the fuss about is named Panhandle, that you know him, that he is real and quite harmless, and that he hopes they won't shoot at him any more, because it hurts. Say you are _quite certain_ he is real, because he has just told you how the planets are weighed.'

"'Dear Pan,' said Billy, 'don't ask me to do that. I never tell people about _you_; they would only laugh at me if I did. Let us keep just as we are, old fellow, and not tell our secret to anybody.'

"Unprepared for a style of address so familiar, 'Why, Billy,' I said, 'I have never seen you before.'

"'Are you quite sure you see me _now_?' he replied.

"Our positions had become reversed--Billy sitting in my study chair that he might read over what I had written about the planets, I standing by his side. I looked down to answer his last question, and for the briefest fraction of a second a vision passed before me. The object beneath me was not my study chair, but a small iron bedstead on which there lay a boy, fast asleep. It passed in the twinkling of an eye, and I found myself seated as before at my desk; the half-finished report was before me, and, save myself, not a soul was in the room. 'It is certain,' thought I, 'that I am haunting somebody. In the name of all the secret Powers that guide the fates of men--whom am I haunting?'"

* * * * *

"A marvellous story," I cried; "and more significant than even you, Panhandle, are aware. I knew Billy Burst. He and I were schoolmates, and practised magic together under the guidance of a mysterious Power whose name Billy would never disclose."

"You knew Billy Burst!" exclaimed Panhandle. "My friend, you fill me with astonishment and delight. Did I not say we were on the eve of great discoveries? Tell me all you know about Billy, for the matter is of the utmost importance."

"You are making _me_ wait for the appearance of the ghost," said I, "and must not be aggrieved if I make _you_ wait for information about Billy."

"I again pledge my word to you," he answered, "that you shall see a ghost this very night."

"And I pledge mine to you that you shall hear all about Billy as soon as the ghost appears. But it is my turn first."

"Let us make it a covenant," he said.

"Agreed!" I answered.

"Then shake hands over the bargain."

As he said this he stood up and extended his hand.