THE WICKED EDITOR’S CHRISTMAS DREAM by Alice Mary Vince

He was a very good editor, as Editors go, though some of them do not go very far; just a little given to promise where he never meant to perform, which after all is a frailty common to all mankind, and not exclusively confined to Editors, so he must not be judged too harshly. Besides, neither his faults or his virtues have anything to do with his dream. It was his Christmas dinner which brought about all that. He was never quite sure himself whether it was the goose, or the pudding, or the walnuts, possibly the punch. In my opinion the blame should be divided equally between the four, with perhaps a rather sharper reprimand to the punch. It happened in front of a great big Christmas fire in his own dining room, but he did not know that until it was all over. He thought he was in his sanctum at the office, and that the telephone bell was ringing. He never was accustomed to answer the summons quickly, and he did not answer it quickly now. It kept on persistently, and then he looked up and addressed the unoffending instrument as though it were a dilatory office boy. He was just going leisurely towards it when straight from it came something to meet him—something thin, and weird, and wavy—which he instantly recognised as the inevitable Christmas Ghost. He had a great dislike to all ghosts, but a particular aversion to the Christmas species. They were so moral, so improving, so bent on doing good. At other seasons of the year ghosts content themselves with tapping, creaking, and occasionally pulling the clothes off your bed, but at Christmas they always become priggish and apt to rake up things you would far sooner forget all about. The Editor saw that he was about to be bored, and he sighed deeply as he asked:

“Will you kindly give me your name? I do not think I have had the pleasure of meeting you before.”

“No,” said the Ghost, “this is my first edition. I have been allotted to wait upon you this evening and show you round a bit.”

“Thank you,” said the Editor, “but the chief reporter generally attends to this sort of thing. You will find him in the other office. Good evening.”

“Not so,” said the Ghost. “It is to you I am sent, and you know that if I sought the chief reporter, you would make your escape by the back way. You see we know all about you.”

The Ghost then moved all the best articles of furniture into one corner, and seated himself in the midst of them. “There is a spirit taking a snap shot of this interview,” he explained, “and it will give a better impression down below if one corner of your room is decently furnished.”

“I see you are thoroughly up to date,” said the Editor; “would you tell me the origin of the Christmas Ghost?”

“Dyspepsia,” answered the Ghost, briefly.

“Why is he so much more respectable and tiresome than any of the other kind?”

“There is nothing like the liver,” said the Ghost, “for awakening the conscience, and there is no season of the year when the liver is more likely to be out of order, and the conscience correspondingly susceptible. We take advantage of this, and come to earth to administer our rebukes and suggest improvements.”

“I suppose you follow the old rules—pictures of the past, present, and future,” said the Editor.

“Yes, I work on the good old lines,” replied the Ghost, “though I flatter myself I have introduced a little variety into the business. Shall we start? You won’t want a catalogue, shall you?”

The Editor groaned.

“You won’t think it rude if I don’t sit out the whole of the show,” he said. “I had an important engagement this evening, and I have a singular repugnance to keeping anyone waiting.”

“You shall go at half time,” said the Ghost.

Then the room was darkened, and the Editor felt himself swiftly whirled through the air. He shut his eyes and opened them to find himself in a very strange place. He had, as it were, a bird’s eye view of a number of houses, all poorly furnished, and filled with men, women, and children, looking scantily fed and clad. In the centre of the place was a pyramid of used foolscap, dusty with age, at which the people gazed sadly. Some of them held closely-written sheets in their hands, and seemed to be brooding over them despairingly.

“What is this?” asked the Editor.

“This,” said the Ghost, “is the Abode of Dejected Men and Rejected Copy. You have largely helped in peopling this.”

“Well,” said the Editor, “there wasn’t room for it all, you know, and I did my best.”

“Not always,” said the Ghost, in denouncing tones. “Read that.”

He pointed to a manuscript over which a very thin, pallid-­looking man was leaning, and the Editor read it carefully. It was addressed to him, and bore a date of some weeks ago, but he had never read it before.

“By jove,” he said, “that’s uncommonly good. I’ll use that on Friday.”

“Too late,” said the Ghost monotonously, “too late. Look into the man’s face.”

The Editor looked. It was the face of a corpse.

“That man died of want,” said the Ghost.

The Editor shivered.

“Shall we move on?” he said. “This place is draughty and I have a slight cold on my chest.”

There was another rush through the air, and then they stopped where there was a perfect Pandemonium of movement and noise. All about were hung various copies of contents’ bills of the Editor’s own paper, and up and down ran boys shouting it out, and offering it for sale. The Editor was proud to see how the people rushed to buy it.

“It has an immense circulation,” he said with a smile of satisfaction.

“Yes,” said the Ghost, grimly. “It has—down here. Read that bill out to me.”

“Horrible murder. Shocking disclosures at the Divorce Court. Suicide of a well-known tradesman. Full details in second edition,” read the Editor as well as he could above the din of the boys shouting “Speshul,” and the stampede of the buyers’ feet. “Yes, I remember that well. We got that murder before anybody.”

“Do not boast,” said the spirit. “Watch this boy and girl.”

The Editor followed the direction of the pointing hand. Both boy and girl were reading the paper earnestly and attentively. The girl who was pretty and innocent looking, was gloating over the story of the Divorce, and the boy was drinking in every line of the Murder case.

“We shall see them again,” said the Ghost.

On they went through the Babel and the Editor saw many strange sights as they passed along. Here and there he caught a glimpse of a prison cell, once he saw a gallows, and everywhere his paper was being read. When they got to the extreme end of the place the Ghost stopped.

“There are the two you saw just now,” he said. The Editor looked but he would not have recognised them. The girl had grown flaunting and bold, and the boy cunning and wizen-faced. He did not like the change.

“Am I answerable for this?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the Ghost. “You and others are answerable for all this.”

“But,” remonstrated the Editor, “the realistic stuff sells so well now-a-days, everyone goes in for it.”

“Even so,” said the Ghost, “and that girl is an outcast and that boy is going to the gallows. Have you had enough?”

“I should be glad to go,” said the Editor, “if you have nothing pleasanter to show me.”

“I was not sent to be pleasant,” said the Ghost.

“I gathered that from the very first,” said the Editor, for they had left the noisy regions and were ascending again.

“Is it all over?” he asked, for he seemed to be sitting in his office chair once more.

“Not quite,” said the Ghost. “You are a little wavering in your politics, are you not?”

“I think you can hardly say that,” said the Editor. “It’s rather hard to please everybody, you know.”

“I understand,” said the Ghost, “you are a wobbler. Feel the effects of that.”

The Ghost made strange signals in the air, and the Editor instantly found himself seized and shaken roughly from side to side. On his right was a grim apparition all collar and hawk-like eyes, and on his left was one who wore an eye-glass of what seemed at that dread moment to be forty horse-power.

“Who and what are these?” he gasped.

“The one to the right is known as the Grim Old Masterpiece, the other we call the Man of Parts. Have you decided between them?”

The Editor could only just shriek “Yes,” so severe was the shaking, and then freed himself with a tremendous effort. The fire was out, and he was in a cold perspiration.

“There was too nutmeg in that punch,” he said, as he lowered the gas and went to bed.