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32 pages

English

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A Christmas-themed collection of ghost stories may seem like an odd idea, but English writer Jerome K. Jerome pulls it off in the engaging volume Told After Supper. Pull it out at your next holiday gathering, or read it any time you're craving some spine-tingling short fiction.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mars 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776677610
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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TOLD AFTER SUPPER
* * *
JEROME K. JEROME

*
Told After Supper First published in 1891 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-761-0 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-762-7 © 2015 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Introductory Now the Stories Came to Be Told Teddy Biffles' Story Johnson and Emily, or The Faithful Ghost (Teddy Biffles' Story) Interlude—The Doctor's Story The Haunted Mill, or The Ruined Home (Mr. Coombes's Story) Interlude The Ghost of the Blue Chamber(My Uncle's Story) The Blue Chamber A Personal Explanation My Own Story
Introductory
*
It was Christmas Eve.
I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectableway to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox,respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox,respectable thing; and the habit clings to me.
Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessaryto mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it wasChristmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve,in a ghost story,
Christmas Eve is the ghosts' great gala night. On Christmas Evethey hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody inGhostland who IS anybody—or rather, speaking of ghosts, one shouldsay, I suppose, every nobody who IS any nobody—comes out to showhimself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about anddisplay their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, tocriticise one another's style, and sneer at one another'scomplexion.
"Christmas Eve parade," as I expect they themselves term it, is afunction, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward tothroughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as themurdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls whocame over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their relatives, anddied raving mad.
Hollow moans and fiendish grins are, one may be sure, energeticallypractised up. Blood-curdling shrieks and marrow-freezing gesturesare probably rehearsed for weeks beforehand. Rusty chains and gorydaggers are over-hauled, and put into good working order; andsheets and shrouds, laid carefully by from the previous year'sshow, are taken down and shaken out, and mended, and aired.
Oh, it is a stirring night in Ghostland, the night of December thetwenty-fourth!
Ghosts never come out on Christmas night itself, you may havenoticed. Christmas Eve, we suspect, has been too much for them;they are not used to excitement. For about a week after ChristmasEve, the gentlemen ghosts, no doubt, feel as if they were all head,and go about making solemn resolutions to themselves that they willstop in next Christmas Eve; while lady spectres are contradictoryand snappish, and liable to burst into tears and leave the roomhurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever.
Ghosts with no position to maintain—mere middle-class ghosts—occasionally, I believe, do a little haunting on off-nights: onAll-hallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for amere local event—to celebrate, for instance, the anniversary ofthe hanging of somebody's grandfather, or to prophesy a misfortune.
He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average Britishghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and heis happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn thewhole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting abankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terribledisaster, about which nobody in their senses want to know soonerthey could possibly help, and the prior knowledge of which canserve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he iscombining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself ifanybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for acouple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn, orbalancing himself on somebody's bed-rail.
Then there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientiousghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered number weighing heavy ontheir minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and alsothe fussy ghost, who is indignant at having been buried in thedust-bin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish asingle night's quiet until somebody has paid for a first-classfuneral for him.
But these are the exceptions. As I have said, the average orthodoxghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve, and is satisfied.
Why on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never couldmyself understand. It is invariably one of the most dismal ofnights to be out in—cold, muddy, and wet. And besides, atChristmas time, everybody has quite enough to put up with in theway of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghostsof any dead ones mooning about the place, I am sure.
There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas—somethingabout the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, likethe dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.
And not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve,but live people always sit and talk about them on Christmas Eve.Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire onChristmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories.Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tellauthentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festiveseason, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, andmurders, and blood.
There is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences;but this of course is not our fault but the fault ghosts, who neverwill try any new performances, but always will keep steadily toold, safe business. The consequence is that, when you have been atone Christmas Eve party, and heard six people relate theiradventures with spirits, you do not require to hear any more ghoststories.

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