"I s'pose so," said Joe; "but come, deal, old fellow; don't go to preachin'."
I have heard Charley say that he never heard anything half so distinctly in his life as he felt what the apparition said to him when their eyes met at that moment.
"God and Huckleberry Street want you, Charley."
Charley looked away restively, and then caught the eyes of the ghost again, and this time the ghost said:
I have heard Charley tell of several other visits they made that night; but, as I said before, even a Christmas yarn and a ghost story must not spin itself out, like Banquo's line, to the crack of doom. However true or authentic a story may be--and you can easily verify this by asking any member of the Christmas Club in Huckleberry Street--however true a yarn may be, it must not be so long that it can never be wound up.
The very last of the wretched places they looked in upon was a bare room in a third story. There was a woman sitting on a box in one corner, holding a sick child. A man with golden hair was pacing the floor.
"There's that devil again!" he said, pointing to the blank wall. "Now he's gone. You see, Carrie, I could quit if I had anybody to help me. Oh! I heard to night that Charley Vanderhuyn had been elected president of the Hasheesh. And I saw him an hour ago on a Second Avenue car. I wish Charley would come and talk to me. He'd give me money, but 'tain't money. I could make money if I could let whisky alone. I used to love to hear Charley talk better than to live. I believe it was the ruin of me. But he don't seem to care for a fellow when his clothes get shabby. See there!" and he picked up a piece of wood and threw it at the wall, startling his wife and making the child cry. "I hit him that time! I wish I could hear Charley Vanderhuyn talk once more. His talk is enough to drive devils away any time. Great God, what an awful Christmas this is!"
Charley wanted to begin to talk on the spot, but when he found that poor "Baron Bertram" could neither see him nor hear a word he spoke, he had a fearful sense of being a disembodied spirit. The ghost looked wistfully at him, and said, "God and Huckleberry Street want _you_, Charley."
Charley was very loath to leave Perdue and his wife in this condition; he would have loved dearly to while away the dreary night for them, but he could not speak to them, and the eyes of the ghost bade him follow, and the two went swiftly back to Charley's rooms again.