Evening star., 1927-09-23
WORLD FAMOUS STORIES
THE BOLD DRAGON.
BY WASHINGTON IRVING.

| NV grandfather made a low DOW 10
the motley assemblage as he entered,
and having undressed himself. placed
his light in the fireplace, asking par
don of the tongs, which seemed to be
making love to the shovel in the Chin
ney corner. The rest of the guests
were by this time sound asleep. My
grandfather, for his part, got into bed
and drew over him one Of those great
| bags of down under which they
smother a man in the low countries,
and there he lay, melting between two
| feather beds. He was a warm
blooded man, and his smothering
played the very deuce with him. He
could not sleep, but had to get up
and walk about for air.
Well. my grandfather had been for
some time absent from his room, and
| was returning, perfectly cool, when
| just as he reached the door he heard
a strange noise within. He paused
and listened. 1t seemed as if some
one were trying to hum tune in de-
| fiance of the asthma. He recoliected
| the report of the room being haunted;
/ but he was no believer in ghosts, so
he pushed the door gently open and
peeped in.
BY the light of the fire he saw a
pale, weazen-faced fellow, in a long
flannel gown and a tall nightcap
with a tassel to 1t, who sat by the fire
with a bellows under his arm by way
of a bagpipe, from which he forced
the asthmatical music that had
played, too, he kept twitching about
with a thousand queer contortions,
nodding his head, and begging about
his tasseled nightcap.
From the opposite end of the room
a long-backed, bandy-legged chair got
suddenly into motion. thrust out first
claw-foot, then crooked arm, and
at length, making a leg, slid grace.
| fully up to an easy chair of
tarnished brocade, and led 1t CALAMITY
| in a ghostly minuet about the floor.
| The musician now played fiercer and
| fiercer. The dancing mania seized
upon all the other pieces of furniture
"a three-legged stool, for instance,
danced hornpipe.
All except a great clothes.press
which kept courtesying in a corner,
perhaps at loss for a. partner. My
grandfather concluded this was the
reason, and being devoted to the sex
and at all times ready for frolic, he
bounced into the room, capered up to
the clothes-press and seized upon two
handles to lead her out-when, whirr
the whole revel was at an end. All
sank quietly into their places as II
nothing had happened, and the musi
clan vanished up the chimney, leaving
the bellows behind him in his hurry
My grandfather found himself seated
in the middle Of the floor with the
clothes-press sprawling before him ano
the two handles jerked off, and in his
hands.
The clothes-press was heavy, and its
fall aroused the household. My grand
father related the marvellous. scene he
had witnessed, and the broken handles
testimony to the fact. There was
no contesting such evidence, par
ticularly with my grandfather, wht
seemed ready to make good every
word with sword or shillelah. And the
landlords daughter corroborated it b,
recollecting that the last person wht
had dwelt in that chamber was &
famous juggier who died Of st. Vitus
dance, and had no doubt infected al
the furniture.
This set all things to rights, par
ticularly when the chambermaids de
clared they had all witnessed strange
carrying on in that room. AS for m,
grandfather, whether he went to bee
again in that room or sought more
tcomfortable quarters, I cannot say
He had seen much service. and wa!
but indifferently acquainted with geog
raphy, and apt to make blunders IL
his travels about inns at night, which
it would have puzzled him sadly t.
account for in the morning.