Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens
Page: 35

"Barber! Pursue me!"

I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a
spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in
Master B.'s room no longer.

Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been
forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told
the exact truth--particularly as they were always assisted with
leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate
that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by the
ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any
of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a
goat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman),
holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and
less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to
have more meaning.

Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare
without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance
on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very smell
of the animal's paint--especially when I brought it out, by making
him warm--I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost, afterwards,
in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which,
the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again
ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and
very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to
confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey:
at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his
stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on
ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings,
from fairs; in the first cab--another forgotten institution where
the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver.

Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in
pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more
wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to
one experience from which you may judge of many.