Part 28 (1/2)
”Without the tinsel and vulgarity, we flatter ourselves,” answered the phantom.
By this time the preparations were complete, and Harry inquired whether the apparition would object to our putting out the lights in order to obtain definite results with the spectroscope. Our visitor politely replied that he was better accustomed to darkness than to the painful glare of our paraffin candles. ”In fact,” he added, ”only the strong desire which I felt to convince you of our existence as ghosts could have induced me to present myself in so bright a room. Light is very trying to the eyes of spirits, and we generally take our const.i.tutionals between eleven at night and four in the morning, stopping at home entirely during the moonlit half of the month.”
”Ah, yes,” said Harry, extinguis.h.i.+ng the candles; ”I've read, of course, that your authorities exactly reverse our own Oxford rules. You are all gated, I believe, from dawn to sunset, instead of from sunset to dawn, and have to run away helter-skelter at the first streaks of daylight, for fear of being too late for admission without a fine of twopence. But you will allow that your usual habit of showing yourselves only in the very darkest places and seasons naturally militates somewhat against the credibility of your existence. If all apparitions would only follow your sensible example by coming out before two scientific people in a well-lighted room, they would stand a much better chance of getting believed: though even in the present case I must allow that I should have felt far more confidence in your positive reality if you'd presented yourself in broad daylight, when Jim and I hadn't punished the whisky quite as fully as we've done this evening.”
When the candles were out, our apparition still retained its fluorescent, luminous appearance, and seemed to burn with a faint bluish light of its own. We projected a pencil through the spectroscope, and obtained, for the first time in the history of science, the spectrum of a spectre. The result was a startling one indeed. We had expected to find lines indicating the presence of sulphur or phosphorus: instead of that, we obtained a continuous band of pale luminosity, clearly pointing to the fact that the apparition had no known terrestial element in its composition. Though we felt rather surprised at this discovery, we simply noted it down on our paper, and proceeded to verify it by chemical a.n.a.lysis.
The phantom obligingly allowed us to fill a small phial with the luminous matter, which Harry immediately proceeded to test with all the resources at our disposal. For purposes of comparison I filled a corresponding phial with air from another part of the room, which I subjected to precisely similar tests. At the end of half an hour we had completed our examination--the spectre meanwhile watching us with mingled curiosity and amus.e.m.e.nt; and we laid our written quant.i.tative results side by side. They agreed to a decimal. The table, being interesting, deserves a place in this memoir. It ran as follows:--
_Chemical a.n.a.lysis of an Apparition._
Atmospheric air 96.45 per cent.
Aqueous vapour 23.1 ”
Carbonic acid 1.08 ”
Tobacco smoke 0.16 ”
Volatile alcohol A trace --------- 100.00 ”
The alcohol Harry plausibly attributed to the presence of gla.s.ses which had contained whisky toddy. The other const.i.tuents would have been normally present in the atmosphere of a room where two fellows had been smoking uninterruptedly ever since dinner. This important experiment clearly showed that the apparition had no proper chemical const.i.tution of its own, but consisted entirely of the same materials as the surrounding air.
”Only one thing remains to be done now, Jim,” said Harry, glancing significantly at a plain deal table in the corner, with whose uses we were both familiar; ”but then the question arises, does this gentleman come within the meaning of the Act? I don't feel certain about it in my own mind, and with the present unsettled state of public opinion on this subject, our first duty is to obey the law.”
”Within the meaning of the Act?” I answered; ”decidedly not. The words of the forty-second section say distinctly 'any _living_ animal.' Now, Mr. Egerton, according to his own account, is a ghost, and has been dead for some two hundred years or thereabouts: so that we needn't have the slightest scruple on _that_ account.”
”Quite so,” said Harry, in a tone of relief. ”Well then, sir,” turning to the apparition, ”may I ask you whether you would object to our vivisecting you?”
”Mortuisecting, you mean, Harry,” I interposed parenthetically. ”Let us keep ourselves strictly within the utmost letter of the law.”
”Vivisecting? Mortuisecting?” exclaimed the spectre, with some amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Really, the proposal is so very novel that I hardly know how to answer it. I don't think you will find it a very practicable undertaking: but still, if you like, yes, you may try your hands upon me.”
We were both much gratified at this generous readiness to further the cause of science, for which, to say the truth, we had hardly felt prepared. No doubt, we were constantly in the habit of maintaining that vivisection didn't really hurt, and that rabbits or dogs rather enjoyed the process than otherwise; still, we did not quite expect an apparition in human form to accede in this gentlemanly manner to a personal request which after all is rather a startling one. I seized our new friend's hand with warmth and effusion (though my emotion was somewhat checked by finding it slip through my fingers immaterially), and observed in a voice trembling with admiration, ”Sir, you display a spirit of self-sacrifice which does honour to your head and heart. Your total freedom from prejudice is perfectly refres.h.i.+ng to the anatomical mind.
If all 'subjects' were equally ready to be vivisected--no, I mean mortuisected--oh,--well,--there,” I added (for I began to perceive that my argument didn't hang together, as ”subjects” usually accepted mortuisection with the utmost resignation), ”perhaps it wouldn't make much difference after all.”
Meanwhile Harry had pulled the table into the centre of the room, and arranged the necessary instruments at one end. The bright steel had a most charming and scientific appearance, which added greatly to the general effect. I saw myself already in imagination drawing up an elaborate report for the Royal Society, and delivering a Croonian Oration, with diagrams and sections complete, in ill.u.s.tration of the ”Vascular System of a Ghost.” But alas, it was not to be. A preliminary difficulty, slight in itself, yet enormous in its preventive effects, unhappily defeated our well-made plans.
”Before you lay yourself on the table,” said Harry, gracefully indicating that article of furniture to the spectre with his lancet, ”may I ask you to oblige me by removing your clothes? It is usual in all these operations to--ahem--in short, to proceed _in puris naturalibus_.
As you have been so very kind in allowing us to operate upon you, of course you won't object to this minor but indispensable accompaniment.”
”Well, really, sir,” answered the ghost, ”I should have no personal objection whatsoever; but I'm rather afraid it can't be done. To tell you the truth, my clothes are an integral part of myself. Indeed, I consist chiefly of clothes, with only a head and hands protruding at the princ.i.p.al extremities. You must have noticed that all persons of my sort about whom you have read or heard were fully clothed in the fas.h.i.+on of their own day. I fear it would be quite impossible to remove these clothes. For example, how very absurd it would be to see the shadowy outline of a ghostly coat hanging up on a peg behind a door. The bare notion would be sufficient to cast ridicule upon the whole community.
No, gentlemen, much as I should like to gratify you, I fear the thing's impossible. And, to let the whole secret out, I'm inclined to think, for my part, that I haven't got any independent body whatsoever.”
”But, surely,” I interposed, ”you must have _some_ internal economy, or else how can you walk and talk? For example, have you a heart?”
”Most certainly, my dear sir, and I humbly trust it is in the right place.”
”You misunderstand me,” I repeated: ”I am speaking literally, not figuratively. Have you a central vascular organ on your left-hand side, with two auricles and ventricles, a mitral and a tricuspid valve, and the usual accompaniment of aorta, pulmonary vein, pulmonary artery, systole and diastole, and so forth?”