New-York tribune., 1922-10-20
The 7ogOer
cppr.. New yors Tr.bunr Ifio.. Io2.

glad there is bOIHeuouy WIN WoAA
/, have to worry about the price OF
coal this winter.--We received
letter yesterday in which our cor
| respondent referred to the United
States OF America as "a Christian
nation" !.
The Constitution Of the United
States says otherwise, however,
| But nobody reads the Constitution
nowadays except the Supreme Court,
newspaper columnists and Prohibi-
ton leaders, and none of them take
it too seriously.--Speaking of Pro-
hibition, we recently met (not by
appointment, please) gentleman
reputed to be Bootlegger. sIs 1T |
true" we asked him, "that you are
worth million ?"--" Nothing like il"
he replied, "but give me another
year and after that they can repeal
that Amendment as soon as they
like."-It is cheering to see this
sweet concord between the Prohibi-
zionist ard the Bootlegger; we
scarcely know which is the more en-
thusiastic over the Amendment.--It
will soon be Halloween.
The night when the Ghosts come
back, you know.---If they want to-
Many Of them don't.-Last Hallow-
cen, between IL midnight and in
the morning, we were driving mo-
tor car past Connecticut graveyard
and we stopped to light a pipe, and
the car wouldn't start again.--We
got out and tickled the carburetor,
and we noticed Ghost sitting on the
stone wall that bounded the ceme-
terry, with his feet hanging down.
He was laughing.-We thought he
was laughing at us and Archy--the
car is named after Archy the Cock
roach, although at times it's speed
is far in excess of anything cock
roach could manage "That is
damned undignified way for Ghost
to act" we said to the wrath.
"I'll laugh if I want to-" he said;
"you needn't get all het up about it,
anyhow. | amt laughin' at you. I'm
laughin' at myself. ."-"You're not so
funny" we said. GIVE seen lot
funnier ghosts than you"
II amt laughin at myself because
Pm funny" said the Ghost. "I know
I amt funny. You don't have to be
funny for folks to have a joke onto
you. You could be sad and folks
could have a joke onto you. I'm a
laughin' at myself because I got
joke onto myself.
We had discovered by that time
that all we needed was some gas,
and we remembered that there was
a garage only two or three miles
back.-Things were not really seri-
ous.-"What's the joke you've got
on yourself?" we asked him.
"Well," said the Ghost, "when
was human / had good deal of
curiosity. Folks around here has,
generally speakin' And it stuck to
me after quit bein' a human and
turned into Ghost. So I says to
myself, tonight I'll sneak back and
see what kind of an epitaph Abigail
has had carved onto my tombstone.
ADlsdIl dHu ue 4iVeu together
thirty years, and just naturally de-
spised each other all that time.--I
wondered to myself if Abigail had
weakened when I died an put some
thing sweet onto that tombstone, or
whether she'd stayed honest an
carved her real sentiments onto it.
An thinks to myself I'll come back
an see."
He broke off into fit of foggy
laughter.-"Well," we said, when he
had laughed himself almost to the
vanishing point, (which was it?
Sweet? Or honest?"
| "Gosh," he said, "there want no
tombstone!"
He walked back with us after the
gas.-Socony gas, we remember dis
tinctly: and we remember thinking
the price too high.-No wonder the
Standard Oil Company of New York
can pay 200 per cent dividends!-We
We're never afraid of New England
ghosts.-That country has been set
tied a long time, and has right to
have ghosts.-One expects them
there; they are as much a part of
the country as the stone fences, and
the sumac and the neat little farm
houses.-But in less settled country
the ghosts alarm us more.--We don't
know why.-There was Ghost came
up out Of Reelfoot Lake. in north
western Tennessee, one night and
nearly scared us into fits.-We got a
poem out of him, which is, in part,
as follows:
Lazy and slow, through the snags
and trees,
Move the sluggish currents, half
asleep;
Around and between the cypress
knees.
Like black, slow snakes, the dark
tides creep
How deep is the bayou beneath the
trees?
"Knee deepl Knee deep! Knee
deep! Knee deep!'
Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot
IL Lake.